New perspectives on intimacy in dreams

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ThaomasOfGrey

When I began at this forum I would very often face issues of lust in dreams. I might experience impulses to have sex with incidental characters in the dream. I may take conscious awareness of the scenario and seek out these kinds of experiences. Like many of the aspects I witnessed in the dreams my core being has taken dramatic shifts in behavior and intent. I feel good about this, but with the new perspective comes new issues to handle.

Increasingly, and in particular with abstinence from pornography, I find women seeking me out in dreams with a total role reversal. It probably sounds great, but for one reason or another I find myself denying the experiences these dreams are delivering. Perhaps the compass of my core being has swung too far. A definite part of the mechanic I have identified is a sense of guilt that relates to my physical reality partner and my commitment to her, even though we have agreed that non-physical encounters do not constitute a transgression on our relationship here. Furthermore I believe that monogamous relationships are really a foundation of low spiritual quality anyway, such as jealousy, and have little place in true unconditional love.

As these issues seem to do, I have noticed this compass problem is presenting itself in physical reality. The natural inclination to back away from other females causes a slight, but undeniable, knee jerk reaction. I have sensed that in some cases this reaction can cause suffering for the other party, which clearly goes against Buddhist philosophies.

I _think_ that the dreams are telling me to allow the balance between these extremes to be found and let the situations unfold without guilt. It is hard to be sure. What do you think?

Stillwater

Something that often gets confused with Buddhist doctrine (not that you should or shouldn't follow such doctrine, just laying it out as I understand it), is that people get the idea of pleasure and attachment mixed up. Buddhism is not anti-pleasure, it is anti-attachment.

For instance, eating a food we enjoy is perfectly fine. Eating that food in a way that would cause harm to ourselves or others is not fine, and Buddhism would tell us that it is because of attachment that we do the thing when it would cause harm. Eating one spoonful of icecream is fine. Eating one bowl of icecream is fine. Eating one every day of the year is not fine because it causes us harm. Buying expensive icecream when we should be using our money for something more important is another form of harm.

So in these non-physical settings of intimacy, a Buddhist would tell you to use harm as the deciding factor. Is someone harmed by acting one way or the other? If so, it is likely the wrong choice. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about such an act itself.

There is another issue at work here, that surrounds the idea of "sexual guilt". It is something a lot of people feel, and it surrounds the fact that sexual drives are outside of our control in some sense. People feel like they lack control over themselves because they are not directing their own sexual drives.

This sort of thinking is described in one of the Buddhist origin stories, where Siddhartha had just spent a long stretch of time practicing brutal asceticism. The story goes, that he had heard a musician tuning an instrument... and got to thinking about how when the string was tuned too loosely, it was useless for music, but when it was tuned too tightly, it could snap. The answer was in the middle, and that is where the music was. He reasoned that spiritual practice was the same. We should use our own self-discipline in guarding our mind, such that we don't cause harm through the error of attachment. But we should also not deprive ourselves.

He called this idea "The Middle Way".
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

ThaomasOfGrey

Thanks Stillwater. I don't believe that anyone gets harmed in these scenarios or that the choice one way or the other would lead to harm. I like this idea of the middle way, thanks for explaining that, I feel freer and better able to judge moral choices now.

Lumaza

#3
 Thaomas, we talked about this very thing back in 2013 in this thread here. Szaxx, Lightbeam and  Soarin chimed in as well. I was the first one to make a statement that was uncharacteristic for that threads title. I had seen so many people come here and the first thing they did was look at that thread. It's been viewed almost 42,000 times here. That's how big of a problem it really is.
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_psychic_and_paranormal/masturbationincubi_and_sucubi-t466.25.html
My comment comes on page 2 under my former name Lionheart.
We all find all kinds of challenges in the other realms. Once we learn to overcome them and see them for what they really are, we can move on to the next one.
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."  Nicolai Tesla

ThaomasOfGrey

True, I just refreshed my memory on that thread. I also read it when I first posted about encountering this problem. I suppose the new information I was looking to add here was that I had "mastered" avoiding these scenarios but that has seem to have led to a new breed of lesson.

A quote from yourself "when something of a lustful nature appeared, I said no, this is not why I came here".

It casts a shadow of doubt on my mind because it isn't the same conclusion I have reached, but my intuition tells me saying no all of the time was as much of a mistake as seeking yes. It had come to cause me to, spurn in a way, actual people unnecessarily out of fear. One series of events in particular has stuck in my mind relentlessly and this tends to happen when there is something important I need to learn from it.

I feel I have the calibration nearly dialed in now, I can only wait to see if there are more layers to this. I am also left wondering about the nature of these relentless recollections of events that can sometimes go on for 5 or more years and why I do this. Is it truly an obsessive compulsive condition, do I have an intuition about certain scenarios having hidden lessons, is there some entity pushing the replay button on this memory until I get it?

Lumaza

Quote from: ThaomasOfGrey on October 19, 2017, 14:50:21
I am also left wondering about the nature of these relentless recollections of events that can sometimes go on for 5 or more years and why I do this. Is it truly an obsessive compulsive condition, do I have an intuition about certain scenarios having hidden lessons, is there some entity pushing the replay button on this memory until I get it?
Tests, quests and challenges are many in the other realms. You are being primed for something, possibly your next "duty" when you leave this realm.

I believe if there is such a thing as a "stable hierarchy" on the other side, that new members are needed all the times. There must be a "changing of the guard". Old souls getting older and evolving, means newer replacements would be necessary.
I see some people on this Forum that could easily fill spots there.  8-)
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."  Nicolai Tesla

EscapeVelocity

#6
It appears that many of us have (had) various degrees of difficulty with the sex issue, myself included. I think that there are several variations off the central issue, that may pertain to some but not others.

I wonder that the sexual desire response is part of what I read as the "Big Three" emotions that we have to learn to properly control in order to gain access to 'deeper/higher' levels of the Non-Physical Realms; it certainly seems to be confirmed in much of the literature. These "Big Three" emotions consist of Fear, then Sexual Desire, then Anger in its various forms...(maybe beginning with impatience or frustration). I have just finished a book on Dream Yoga as well as a second read-through of Kurt Leland's The Unanswered Question, both of which put heavy reliance into the importance of "purging" these 3 emotions as much as possible while still in the Physical Realm, in order to minimize our possible mis-perceptions and distractions in the Afterlife. The question of 'purging' and its possible importance to our efforts is a topic for another discussion.

The Fear impulse is encountered almost immediately, as Lumaza pointed out, in the inability to feel secure in 'just letting go' and letting your NP focus take you away from the Physical. The Fear impulse also rears its ugly head rather quickly in most early Sleep Paralysis episodes. Once you are in a NP environment, any confusion or mis-interpretation of a situation can also result in the Fear impulse being activated. Step by step, this all takes time to overcome and gain control. And just about the time you are getting control of your Fear, the Sexual impulse shows up!

It is just my speculation, but my experience and my reading seems to confirm that the Sexual impulse may be strongly increased by the idea of an 'etheric' OBE being somewhat powered by activation of the Root/Sacral Chakra, at least during an initial period of etheric explorations. As our experiences progress, possibly into what is the astral body, this 'powering' appears to transfer into the Heart Chakra area and later to the Throat or Brow/3rd Eye. I can only speak from my own experiences, but as my OBEs moved from RTZ/etheric, I noticed a significant lessening in Root activation and sexual excitement, and more excitation of the Heart area (the rapid heartbeat/the chest pressure).

Now- This is the central issue I wished to introduce an idea about- ThaomasOfGrey asks the very reasonable question about why he seems to be 'stuck' in his experiences by the Sex issue? Is it an 'either/or' proposition of...let's just say 'astral promiscuity'? Can he or can't he? Should he or shouldn't he? Is it a moral issue, either personal or communal?

My point is, and my suggestion is that this may be the wrong question. The question may be about your ability to display control of these 3 basic human emotions. Simply put, the NP doesn't allow you to move beyond a certain point until you've shown a certain degree of mastery over these emotions; for instance, they see no point in letting you run around the astral getting freaked out (Fear) by everything; or trying to have (Sex) with every entity you run into; or getting into hostile confrontations, thinking everything has to be a fight (Anger). Add subtleties and stir...

I was fortunate enough to stumble onto the answer of the Sexual impulse issue early on while reading Monroe's first book 'Journeys...', because he had a frustrating difficulty with this. Leland also appears to have had some difficulty with it, as have some notable explorers here at the Pulse. I solved the issue only several years ago and almost by accident; but then I realized the answer. And the answer isn't a permanent one. Like repeating Fear tests, the NP seems to throw each of these tests at us from time to time, maybe like pop-quizzes, lol. And I still fail from time to time.

The answer, I think, is something Stillwater alluded to- maybe... The Middle Way.

It's not an either/or question; there is a third option, a subtle distinction, but nonetheless a significant one. You don't accept the sex but you also don't deny it; you choose to defer.

Sex would be great but maybe another time; just not now; I have other plans.

In my experience, making this choice alters the current situation without shutting it down and allows the experience to continue in another direction.



Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
                                                          -O. Wilde

Lumaza

#7
 Excellent post with excellent points in it EscapeVelocity! A true ***** deserved!  8-)

I find that those tests do seem to revolve around those 3 issues. Fear, Lust and Anger could also be grouped as "Egocentric" things. The first thing I was taught was to "leave your ego at the door". That's easy to do while Phasing or traditional OBEs, but much harder when you are just becoming aware in a Dream. When you first become aware in your Dreams, you are normally "you" in conscious sense. That means, you are still living your physical characteristics, including your ego.

"Not now" or "deferring" is great solution. You want them to know that you are serious and that you also understand it's a test to start with. There is plenty of time to play, if that's what you are looking for, but sometimes "school" is fully in session and they need you to stay focused.
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence."  Nicolai Tesla