Buddha Tea House

[Selski]

I'm with two friends, K and T, at a nightclub. It's busy, loud and there is live music. We are watching the band and enjoying ourselves. Two lads are looking over at the three of us, so I nudge T in a "you and K are in" kind of way and turn the opposite way.

I see a young man and woman dancing together about 10ft away from me. The man suddenly falls to the ground and slowly goes down to a lying position. She rushes over and shakes him. He comes to, looks a bit dazed, then gets back up. I walk over to him and tap him on the shoulder. I gently tell him not to ignore the fall - he must make sure he gets checked out at a doctor as soon as he can. He kindly waves me away. Later I see them both dancing again.

The evening is coming to an end and I find K and T to see if we are all going back to our hotel together. K remarks that we are not in our usual dress for nightclubbing. I agree and note I'm wearing a long skirt, all the way down to my ankles. We look dressed for an interview rather than a club.

K advises that we are going somewhere else and holds out a slip of paper that says 'Vegetarian Cafe' and an address on it. As is usual in dreams, there is no 'getting to the cafe' - we are there walking through the door. This is a small intimate establishment. It is filling up but it appears we've booked ahead as they let us in despite a queue at the door. The cafe is called 'Buddha Tea House' and is reputed to be the actual one that Buddha visited.

It transpires that this is no ordinary cafe. It's a place to learn the art of tea. There is a waitress who I understood as being a 'sensei'. She had us all seated and was introducing herself and advising us what we should order first when visiting a tea house. She didn't look like a typical waitress, more like one of us in smart clothes.

~~~ooo000ooo~~~

Sadly, that's all I remember from this non-lucid dream. When I awoke around 4am I went to the loo and once returned thought about the dream, running it through my mind to make it solid. I knew I wouldn't need to write anything down as I was awake for a good hour.

K and T are two people I used to work with in waking life a long time ago. I haven't had any RL contact with them for many years. Yet they regularly appear in dreams, often together but not always. I suspect they are dream guides cloaked in my friends' bodies. Broadly-speaking K is the extrovert, T the introvert. Yin and yang sort of.

I think this dream is an important one - and I think it was NON-lucid for that reason. Sometimes I find it all too easy to dismiss dreams if I've not been particularly conscious...but this one felt a bit special once I'd awoke. It was to do with the following factors:

• Keywords of Buddha, vegetarian, tea, sensei
• Sensible clothing - too formal for a nightclub. I deem my long skirt was a sign of 'modesty'
• The sexual test which I passed - go me, go me, go me!
• K and T

Whilst there was no obvious message/advice given, I get an overall sense that I'm on the right track, doing things correctly and am embarking in a new direction with regards to spirituality and dreaming.

I did wonder about the guy who fell. He could have been a lucid dreamer who briefly awoke (thereby losing dream consciousness for a few seconds). I often wonder what happens to me in the dream when I briefly awake (although I was able to ask a dream character this one time).

All in all, a simply splendid dream, despite being non-lucid. 

[T-Man]

Selski,

Sounded like a fun experience.  You seem to do very well passing on all those sexual tests!   
I was just wondering if you were seeking some sort of advice or had been looking for some answer to something that you have been thinking about?  Maybe the waitress/sensei was saying you needed to order first was actually indicating that you need to ask the proper question or the question you have been thinking about recently.  Overall, that would have been a fun Lucid Dream if you had your awareness!

[Lumaza]

 Sounds like a great experience Selski!  I see you are back in full throttle. Just like riding a bicycle! 

Did you read that whole thread that EscapeVelocity gave you in your last LD thread about Kurt Leland's "Café" experience? Your Sensei" sounds like a "Facilitator".

It seems like your experience was full of "triggers". First the fact of being with friends in a nightclub listening to Music that you likely enjoy as well. Then you had more things to aid your awareness to finally lead you to the Café, like the fact that you noticed the way you were dressed.

It's funny how we "blank out" the trivial things, like how we get from point "A" to point "B". Yours being the travel from the club to the Café. The name of the Vegetarian Café also showed that you were in for a treat. The name "Buddha Tea House" would definitely raise my awareness level as well.   

We may look back at the "sex tests" now as something minor or trivial now. But in the beginning they were a big hindrance to our NP evolution. Now they are totally apparent and if anything help in the awareness process. I find it's a great "DT" (Dream trigger).

[Selski]

Selski,

Sounded like a fun experience.  You seem to do very well passing on all those sexual tests!   
I was just wondering if you were seeking some sort of advice or had been looking for some answer to something that you have been thinking about?  Maybe the waitress/sensei was saying you needed to order first was actually indicating that you need to ask the proper question or the question you have been thinking about recently.  Overall, that would have been a fun Lucid Dream if you had your awareness!

I hadn't asked a specific question before going to sleep, but this week I've been thinking a lot about my beliefs/non-beliefs in general. After having a mini-rant about simply enjoying my experiences and not looking too much into them, and then reading EV's response, I started to delve a little deeper.

I looked through some of my earlier experiences here at the Pulse and was surprised to find just how open-minded I was back then. I actually thought I'd become more open-minded over the years...but the exact opposite has happened. Then I read some of Kurt Leland's experience and what interested me was how similar they are to mine (not mirrored, but in the general sense of the word).

Whilst I'm always reluctant to take on limiting beliefs, I guess I'm still searching for something - even after all these years. So this week I thought I'd break down the defence walls and open up more to my dreams, firstly by bouncing off Kurt's ideas (and others here). I've ordered Otherwhere and the day of having the Cafe dream, I felt rather happy and somewhat excited that I was embarking on a new adventure. It feels like a new chapter in my life.

The dream, I believe, was confirmation of the decision and that all is well. So it was less of an answer, and more of validation.

[Selski]

  Did you read that whole thread that EscapeVelocity gave you in your last LD thread about Kurt Leland's "Café" experience? Your Sensei" sounds like a "Facilitator".

I did read the whole thread and then went on to read some others of his! Very interesting. 

It seems like your experience was full of "triggers". First the fact of being with friends in a nightclub listening to Music that you likely enjoy as well. Then you had more things to aid your awareness to finally lead you to the Café, like the fact that you noticed the way you were dressed.

That's a good point and one I hadn't really thought about before. I only tend to get the 'big' triggers (luckily I have a few of them) and these small ones are missed. Hopefully now that I'm back into the whole LD/AP business again, I'll begin spotting the smaller ones too.

It's funny how we "blank out" the trivial things, like how we get from point "A" to point "B". Yours being the travel from the club to the Café.

I've wondered about this before. I'm not so sure it's a "blank out". It might be that in the dreamstate, travelling (if it's not part of the dream lesson) is irrelevant and so is simply removed. I remember watching an episode of Doctor Who where the same thing happened. It was interesting to see it done on the screen...and it was actually that aspect which made the Doctor's assistant realise she was no longer in the real world. Perhaps it's another potential lucid trigger if we have the mind to think 'I don't remember HOW I got here'.

We may look back at the "sex tests" now as something minor or trivial now. But in the beginning they were a big hindrance to our NP evolution. Now they are totally apparent and if anything help in the awareness process. I find it's a great "DT" (Dream trigger).

They were a MASSIVE hindrance to me. Although saying that, they were also a WHOLE HEAP of fun. I also learned a heck of a lot with them such as prolonging the dream - in fact, I think my dreamguides got so fed up with me always choosing the sex option, that they went back to the drawing boards and worked the sex into the lessons I was supposed to be learning!! Whilst I'm getting there, I don't think I'll ever become a dream-celibate!   

[Lumaza]

I've wondered about this before. I'm not so sure it's a "blank out". It might be that in the dreamstate, travelling (if it's not part of the dream lesson) is irrelevant and so is simply removed. I remember watching an episode of Doctor Who where the same thing happened. It was interesting to see it done on the screen...and it was actually that aspect which made the Doctor's assistant realise she was no longer in the real world. Perhaps it's another potential lucid trigger if we have the mind to think 'I don't remember HOW I got here'.

Well, we do know that thought=action over there. So why walk through or drive anywhere when you can just think and be there!  On some level our Dream self/NP personality knows that already.

They were a MASSIVE hindrance to me. Although saying that, they were also a WHOLE HEAP of fun. I also learned a heck of a lot with them such as prolonging the dream - in fact, I think my dreamguides got so fed up with me always choosing the sex option, that they went back to the drawing boards and worked the sex into the lessons I was supposed to be learning!! Whilst I'm getting there, I don't think I'll ever become a dream-celibate!   

I agree they are fun. It is a great way to find yourself sidetracked during a learning Simulation. Our teachers must be saying "Doh, not again", lol! 

I wanted to stress that point above because sometimes we just kind of overlook how trying some of these lessons can be.