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.

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-=[ 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

Dancing the Body

¡Hola! Everybody...
I went to sleep and when I woke up, Spring had srung! LOL!

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-=[ Dancing With the Devil ]=-

"Let’s get retarded/ Let’s get retarded in here... ”

-- Black-Eyed Peas

[Note: Initially, the Black-Eyed Peas song Let’s Get it Started was titled Let’s Get Retarded]

Popular music is deeply informed by an African worldview wherein the body is experienced as separate from the brain. From this point of view, the body is the “large” brain.

When Black-Eyed Peas incite you to “get retarded,” they are not referring to an intellectual capacity. They are inciting you toward an experience of the totality of yourself. They are challenging you to entertain the idea that your body is a healthy focus for artistic and spiritual attention.

In our culture, we tend to live inside of our heads all the time. It’s as if we live from the “neck up,” as a friend of mine likes to say. In living in this overly analytical and “brain”-focused manner, we lose sight of our intuitive bodies -- of the power of our bodies to enlighten and guide us. In fact, current research on brain function shows that our “brains” aren’t really in our heads. There’s a historical foundation for this disgust with the body in puritanical societies.

You think I'm crazy? Well, next time you go out dancing watch an accomplished dancer, or any dancer. A good salsa dancer, for example, is beyond technique, in abandoning herself to the ancient rhythms of the Orishas, she enters a flow state of bliss. In those peak moments, she experiences union, a creative and spiritual state. That’s the brain/ mind/ body working as an integrated whole.

That’s why we all love the dance. It’s a metaphor and tool for engaging the spiritual within us -- to “get retarded” means to stop the mental fuckery. It means to get out of our heads and down into the reality of our bodies.

And you know? The ancient West Africans, as well as many other ancient cultures, got it right. The mind/ brain is not solely the province of the “head.” There is brain tissue in the gut area, for example (behind the stomach -- ever had a “gut feeling”?), chemical reactions throughout the body are constantly occurring, informing the mind/ brain and vice versa. Therefore, the “brain” is not something inside of our head, but our whole -- our consciousness -- our “felt” sense.

So, here we are finding out after years of Descartes error that the body is the brain and that we forsake the body at peril of losing touch with the intuition and eternal wisdom of the body.

Folks:

“LET’S GET RETARDED!

LET'S GET RETARDED IN HERE!...

LOL

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!

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-=[ 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