Hi,
Two types of dreams for me, but then, I have been studying and writing off my dreams for 40 years, and "interpretation" is not easy, but writing off it is!
I did learn, early on, to have a pad and pen by my bedside, and only write a word or two about the dream, and one can usually bring it back up, slowly ... at first it might be bland, but as time goes by more and more of it comes "visible" to you, as you remember things better.
For the record, I am NOT a Carlos Castaneda fan, but his book on dreams, is the best there is on the subject, and it is so deep and so far, that most folks are scared of even touching the book. If it is not deep, its ideal concept is insane, and it is actually somewhat closer to what I see and understand off my own work.
Two kinds of "dreams" ... the ones from REM and the ones from NON-REM. These have been studied a long time, and CC describes these as "known" and "unknown". One is a sort of vegubator, and just a rehash of daily stuff and I think, that it is more about our feelings and thoughts than anything else. I recommend, not making calls or decisions off these, since these are all nothing but "observatory", and you are always on the "outside", the veritable third person of literature. This very process is excellent fro writing things, from poetry, to stories, to novels, and I imagine that it is also useful for music and painting and any other arts. But, I caution myself on these, because I do NOT want to be a "pointed" writer, in this area ... sometimes, simply an observer, and comments are not for me to make ... sort of this is me ... and you see what you see, and I do not judge that seeing, although both you and I might not like it and such.
The "deep", or "unknown" part, is hard, and you and I do not usually spend time there, but it is here where things get mixed up with your other INNER abilities. Sharke's out of the body moments, scare him, because he has not studied the OOBE thing, which the dreams show him he is EXTREMELY proficient at, and something that most of us, can not learn. Being OOBE is not being "dead" ... it is the part of you that is your "source" of everything, for the most part, and you can not control it, although there is a side of it, where you can change the energies and the story easily, and it is here that the "inner discipline" is needed and worked on by the deep Tibetan Buddhists like the Dalai Lama (kinda comes from The BARDO which is grossly mistranslated by westerners to scare you!) and the like. This discipline, helps maintain the continuity, otherwise your mind has a tendency to just wonder and be all over the place, and confuse things even worse.
For me ... be careful in mixing thoughts ... you have ideas, I have ideas, we have ideas ... and you have your dreams. These create their own ideas, and you have to learn those and know where to take them, and how to work with them. The nice thing about the inner thing, and the "deep" stuff, is that you are allowed to "replay" it, and change its outcome or details easily enough, and that ought to tell you how much of an inner experimental person we really can be. In general, for one to get to this deeper area, one has to learn a little meditation, as it is required that the "inner dialogue" be shut off, so you can allow the inner movie to pass and finally go away, and then you can get started learning the inner part.
But where we get stuck is the "inner movie" ... and do not see that we can get way past that into something else ... but the inner mind discipline is simply not there.
More on this on demand ... I can go on it forever, and these are ... again ... simply how I see it, and they are not ideas, or concepts ... there is no such thing as a concept or idea when it comes to your inner self ... it's just YOU ... and that's that. Over thinking it, just makes it worse!
Have some fun!
post edited by Moshkito - 2016/06/20 03:49:06