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Wow! Masses of stuff. I won't even try to interpret anything I read because I believe that dreams can only properly be interpreted by the dreamer especially in dreams as complex as these.

I believe that the majority of characters (people, animals etc.) that appear in our dreams actually represent parts of our own personalities and conflicts between these characters within our dreams represent conflicts within ourselves (such as guilt, anger etc.). Sometimes a part of us really wants to express itself but another part of us won't allow it - perhaps because of how we were brought up to perceive good and bad, right and wrong etc.

The one suggestion that I would offer however is for your friend to use a technique called free-association in attempt to get at the real meaning of these dreams:

Pick one significant part of the dream - something that perhaps stood out - and focus on what that makes you feel; what it reminds you of; memories; people; your childhood; whatever. Then take that train of thought as far as it will go. Then pick another significant part of the dream and do the same. I find it quite remarkable how I can find things out about myself that I was not previously aware: guilt towards someone, feelings that have been repressed for years etc.

This doesn't always work and it takes a bit of practice but I hope it helps some.  

...Or it could simply represent something that you are torturing yourself over. What did the bird make you think of? What was significant about the eyes? Questions for yourself of course.  

Personally I've been going down a Buddhist path but I'm still new to it. I've already had a couple of pretty serious realizations though and I am beginning to see things from a very different and far more open-minded perspective that I had no idea was in me. These fleeting visions are just a small part of it.

I know what you mean about the time. I have an hour commute each way on top of 40 hours and by the time I get home each night I have half an hour with my son if I'm lucky. What I would give for more time.

I really don't live for work. Honestly. I'm good at what I do but I kinda just let the whole work day "happen" with me doing what I have to do. But inside is where it is all REALLY going on. That's where you can expand your mind and explore your potential. That's where it counts.

The only reason I've got on your case about this is because I know where you're coming from. Call me what you like: a robot, a sell-out, a red-cell, whatever. Honestly mate, think about this: does it really matter? At the end of the day we are both sitting in front of machines in our work places when we'd rather be somewhere else. All I'm saying is that you can learn to deal with it or you can let it eat you up.  

Ok Kev,

I won't get on your case anymore but something you said is quite interesting.

I will always fight the system. Even if it's a war inside my head.

I'm not going to bother trying to refute all the assumptions you made about me other than to say this. The difference between me and you is that you (seem to) spend your day fighting wars in your head that don't get you anywhere and make you more and more angry whereas I try to use my mind for much more constructive purposes during the course of my work day. I'm happy with my life.

I wish you all the best in your life. Really.  

Now if you don't mind I have to go and wash my boss's car before the Easter office party this Sunday.  

Oh man,

I've had dreams about programming problems that have really stumped me during the day. In the dream the solution is not only correct but it is elegant and so simple that I can't understand why I didn't think of it before.

And that is why, in my half-awake state I decide there's no need to write it down. I couldn't possibly forget that...

DOH!  

To go with the grain, is to succumb to the evils of becoming like everyone else, a mindless red cell robot. That I will not become. I don't hate the people at work. I understand that they are just a form of artificial intelligence, feeding the machine and the government. See I am not, that's my personal struggle. I will never be them. If you don't understand this, then you are a red cell yourself.

Ok Kevin. So what exactly is it that you have done that has "fought" the system? Where are all the corporate casualties of the Attack of Kevin? You seem to think that you're in some way different from everyone else but you are as much a red cell as me and all the others. You are feeding the system every day just like everyone else in the same way as your physical body is feeding millions of parasitic bacteria that are nice and cozy in your stomach, living off you. What are you gonna do? Cut away your stomach so as not to give them the satisfaction of using you? Come on man, it's you who needs to wake up here! Carry on fighting. Carry on fighting till the day you die. You'll still be every bit as angry, confused and desperate as you are now and the corporate machine will still be just as powerful - it won't even miss you.

You will never change the system. The only person you can truly change is yourself and if each of us can do that then (in time) we can change the system.

I don't want to insult you here but you seem (rather paradoxically) to have a very high opinion of yourself. You're not Che Guevara, you're not Luke Skywalker, you're Kevin from Worcester, MA. Sort your own life out and stop avoiding the truth by blaming others.

Sincere apologies if this is a bit harsh but you need it my friend.  

Kevin,

You can stay the way you are for the next ten years and you'll still be posting the same self-hate-filled rants to this forum or you can do something about it NOW. Seriously man, go to work tomorrow and hate everyone and look at them as "fools" and see whether that helps you one iota.

By the way, I also am a DB man and I also could think of far better things to do with my 40 hours such as meditation, spiritual growth as well as spending time with my family but if I was working where you are you wouldn't notice me. I don't complain. I'm happy and I'm genuinely nice to my work colleagues. I'd just be another one of those fools you despise. But every day I grow a little because I have a positive outlook and I contain my inner anger as best I can. I have my own agenda of spiritual growth.

IMHO you really need to let all this hate for corporate life and modern society simply wash over you. Yup, a lot of it is c**p. We all know that. We also know that you ain't gonna change it so stop fighting it. Weren't there stories of prisoners in Vietnam only being able to survive by learning to love their captors? Fighting it/them is pointless. The only loser is you. Whenever you encounter something that annoys you make a mental decision: I can occupy my mind with this rubbish and wind myself up about it for the next half hour or I can use my mind in pursuit of my higher goal; my personal agenda of spiritual growth. For me, the latter wins every time (well, most times   ). Try it just for one day. Commit your mind to achieving a realization and don't let any of the everyday rubbish detract you from it. See if you can do that.

I know this is turning into a rant itself but I can see so much of myself in what you post so I'm writing this as much for me as for you but you have to use the intelligence that you obviously have to realize that there is a way out. There is a way to happiness. There really is! It's just not the way that you're used to travelling, that's all.

Come on Kevin. Stop going round in circles. Take a positive step towards your own happiness.

OMS,

Have you recently started/restarted meditating or exploring your mind in some way? The reason I ask is that since I restarted my spiritual journey some months back and started meditating I have had similar visions myself: I see mostly animals out of the corner of my eye usually running off somewhere and I can never catch them when I look. I also sometimes see people.  

It did start to freak me out at first but I now put it down to my renewed meditation and increasing spiritual awareness and it usually happens to me when my mind is relaxed so I can see why this would happen to you whilst driving.

Have you looked at the sticky at the top of this forum called Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening?  

I have also dreamed within a dream. The interesting thing was that when I awoke from the "inner" dream I was aware that I was still dreaming the "normal" dream and was able albeit briefly to take some control over it. If this ever happens again I think it is a useful opportunity to take advantage of.  

Thanks for all your replies guys, there's some fantastic stuff there.  

I was wondering whether anyone has actually managed to make some sense out of their epic dreams. Do you think they are just outpourings of everything in your life? A flushing out of the subconscious maybe or everything that is "on your mind"?

Sometimes I just wake up exhausted and think "What was that all about?"

Hmm.

Every so often I have "epic" dreams that seem like entire worlds of their own. I can be walking down a street, say a marketplace, and I can see dozens, even hundreds of people in full detail, each of them carrying on with their own "lives" seemingly oblivious to me or to the rest of the dream.

Just the other day I had one of these dreams and it had a very weird plot running through it comparable to some Hollywood-style movie. So much happened and so many characters were involved that I didn't even bother to try to interpret it or any part of it but it did make me wonder whether anyone else has such dreams and whether they've managed to make any sense of them.

Kevin,

It's a slow process. I am in the same boat as you. I desperately want to connect with my higher self but seeing as this is probably the most important journey I am going to embark on in this life I am taking it one step at a time and am doing plenty of prep work. This includes trying to resolve my anger issues i.e. anger at the world in general as this in itself is an attachment to the world and is doing nothing but impeding my progress. Also I am trying to overcome my impatience to "achieve" something as we shouldn't forget that the journey is as important as the destination if not more so.

I am no further along the road than you but I would suggest that you try to enjoy your periods of meditation and stop trying so hard to get somewhere. Also do whatever you have to do to try and resolve some of the anger you bear for "this SICK little game of life"   . If you can do this it will free you to move on in your spiritual journey, I am sure. In time (and we should accept that it may be a while) I'm sure we will both reap the rewards and find our higher selves.  

I'm currently reading A Guide to the Buddhist Path by Sangharakshita.

Hopefully it will provide me with some terminology to articulate myself when responding  

I haven't read Journey of Souls so I can't really comment on what it contains and I apologize if I go "off-thread" here but I don't see the physical body as its own entity at all.

I have read and believe (at this moment anyway    ) that each of our incarnations comes from some sort of reservoir or ocean of "soul-matter" and can be likened to filling a cup from that ocean, when we die we then return to this "ocean". The physical body is simply a temporary vessel that "wasn't" before our incarnation and "is no longer" after our death.

When you say "...there must be something to combine it to" I agree but does this have to be a conscious something? Without the spirit a body is just a body.

cristaphin,

I have a very simple view on this: You can liken your body to a car that is carrying you on a journey. Just because you are not going to need it once you reach your destination that is no reason not to take the best care of it that you can whilst it is in your possession.

Albeit a temporary one, it is still a precious gift and should be treated as such.  

Hey guys,

Just to add my own bit to this thread I came across the following quote from a book I am reading  called "A Guide to the Buddhist Path" by a man called Sangharakshita.

A certain amount of confusion has arisen in the West about the Buddha being a god, or God, because they see that he is worshipped - that Buddhists offer flowers to the altar, light candles, and bow down - and if you worship someone, we think, it means that for you that person is God. But that is quite wrong. Not only Buddhists, but people generally in the East, have got quite a different concept of worship. In India the same word 'puja' is used for paying respect to the Buddha, to one's parents, to one's elder brothers and sisters, to one's teachers, spiritual or secular, and to any senior or respectable person. So what the Buddhists are doing when they offer flowers to the Buddha-image is respecting or honouring the Buddha as an Enlightened being, not worshipping him as God.

Hey J,

As a rule I'm not one to consult dream dictionaries as I think they can be a bit "two-dimensional" in their interpretations.

That said, I've got four of them   and according to one, if you dream of a museum then "Your social life will be fascinating and your opportunities will expand."

I see. As I said before it was just something that came to mind on reading your dream. I don't believe that everyone needs to have kids to fulfill their potential at all.

So the search goes on.    I'd like to see your face when it does finally reveal itself to you. That'd be a picture - lol  

I'd like to know more about what you went through to take your vows as a Buddhist (either in this thread or elsewhere). Also, you say you're from MS. I'm in the UK and not certain about your US codes. Is that Mass or Miss?

Neo,

The first thing I would say is that the only person who can properly interpret your dreams is yourself. The best technique I find for interpreting my dreams is "free-association" and it involves taking each part of your dream in turn and analyzing it, asking yourself questions about it such as "What does this part/thing remind me of?", "Why did this bit bother me?", "Why did this appear in the dream in the particular way it did?" etc.
You'd be amazed at how far such a technique can take you but I would add that the important thing is to be honest with yourself as it is your own subconscious that is sending you the message within the dream. However, you may uncover things about yourself that you'd rather not "hear" but the only way to overcome them is to confront them.
As far as the content of the dreams you mentioned I would say (and please don't think I'm some kind of dream expert because I'm not) that in general dreams tend to be symbolic and so people in your dreams are very likely to be parts of your own personality that may be conflicting with each other and killing people (and it's amazing how common this kind of dream is) tends to mean, again only in my non-professional opinion, a part of your personality that you want to "kill" or shrug off.
Your first two dreams seem to be similar in nature i.e. feelings of betrayal ("Bastard!") - perhaps one part of you has done something that another part of you does not approve of - and guilt (you being killed) - a part of you feeling guilty for bringing attention to it - but these are only surmises on my part and may not be at all relevant.
That's about as far as I can go. Best of luck with it.

Hiya J,

"What would you have me know?"

from J.K.

The letter gimel relates to "kindness and nourishment". In particular the outflowing of God's kindness and nourishment. The polarities of man and woman (the letter bet, or 2) are resolved in the child (the gimel, 3), who is raised through kindness (the natural feeling associated with caring for children) and nourishment (the natural act associated associated with the same activity. Maharal (a rabbi in the Middle Ages) explains that the Oneness of aleph denotes ultimate perfection that exists only with God and the duality of bet implies diversity and heterogeneity, multiplicity and incompatibility. The gimel signifies the capacity to neutralize the dissimilarity of two contrasting forces and unite them into a lasting and more wholesome unit.

from "David" quoted by J.K.

It is interesting that Gimel which corresponds to the High Priestess card in the Tarot also corresponds to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life path to Kether (The Crown) from Tipareth (Beauty) as opposed to either Binah (Understanding) or Chokmah (Wisdom)

from some old notes.
I always vowed that I wouldn't shy away from knowledge be it external or internal in nature as to do so would impede my journey and I've always believed in confronting everything that was placed in my path but my world was turned completely upside-down one day when my wife said she wanted us to have a baby. I was so scared at first and for quite a while I had to do some soul-searching to get to the root cause of it (which isn't relevant here) but during this time I was reminded of a man I used to know; a very learned man with whom I had no end of fierce theological debates but with whom I shared a close spiritual bond. I remembered him telling me one day that he would never be an elder in his congregation because he was not a father and that only a father knew the love that was required to hold such a position. His congregation's leadership was male-based, something I do not subscribe to personally but his comment struck a chord with me.
Be that as it may, since my son was born I have found a love within me that I never knew I possessed; a love not only for my son but for the whole world.
I don't know your personal circumstances and it is none of my business anyway. You may already be a fantastic dad with ten wonderful kids in which case this posting would be largely redundant but either way please don't think I am inferring anything by this posting; it is just something I felt compelled to write after reading about your dream. I hope it is of some use.

Good luck with your search.

Ivanda,

I was curious by the second dream that you mentioned. I am not an expert in dream interpretation as only the dreamer themselves can ever do that but in my experience dreams are mostly symbolic and dreaming about killing someone/something represents "killing" or doing away with some part of your own personality. The fact that you feel guilty about it is obviously due to the fact that it is a part of you and you have grown used to it being there.

Perhaps your dream is telling you you must shed this part of yourself and move on but as to which "part" of your personality it refers to only you can answer.

Hope this helps  

Tombo,

Out of the four things you mentioned that were precursors to these dreams, for me the fourth one stands out from the others. In my opinion meeting people from the past, especially ones with whom we had some sort of attachment invokes strong feelings within us, sometimes feelings that we didn't even know were still there.

I am no expert in dream interpretation by any means and anyway it is something that only the dreamer can do as Nagual said but it sounds to me like a dream where the dreamer feels that part of them that they are clinging to should be killed (or rather left behind).

"Excess baggage" and all that.

Hope that helps in some way  

What an excellent thread!

Tombo, in answer to your reformulated question I would just like to add that apart from the times that I find AP occurring by itself (which isn't as often as I'd like), the best way for me to get into AP simply from a dream/lucid dream is to WANT to do it and to prepare for it before I have even gone to sleep. I know that sounds like an obvious thing to say but if something has been troubling me then (as with most people) I can either give myself a sleepless night over it or I can prepare myself to "fix" it during my sleep.

As an example I have gone to bed deciding that I wanted to resolve the inner anger that I seem to carry around with me and an amazing yet very scary AP ensued from which I managed to resolve a couple of issues.

Even if nothing is currently troubling you, focusing on wanting to get to know yourself better, improving yourself and to get to the root cause of any problems you may have (whether you are aware of them or not) tends to make dreams clearer (for me at least), which itself increases the chance of turning it into AP.

Doesn't always work though.