OBEs are DREAMS... and DREAMS are OBEs !

[Jeff_Mash]

Hi Shaman....

Good post.  I think I agree with most of what you're saying, but I would like to comment on it some more.

Many people ask themselves, "Just what exactly are dreams?"

To me, dreams are nothing more than conscious memories of an unconscious experience.

Lucid dreams are conscious memories of an experience where you know that you're dreaming.  That is, you know that this isn't "real" or "real life" as you know it.

OBE's are conscious memories of a conscious experience where you know that you're awake, and that you're body (shell) is left behind somewhere...on a bed, on a couch, etc.

Now, in all three cases, since we possess a certain varying degree of consciousness, we percieve things differently.  Since all things are made up of energy, we decipher what that energy is and assign a shape or form to it.

So complimenting your theory, when OBE, if you see someone who says something that doesn't seem to make sense, or you see an event which you don't quite understand, you may not want to take that literally, but instead, look for the deeper meaning.

Now, that's not to say that OBE's are not real, just like dreams are not real.  OBE's and dreams are equal in terms of their reality.  The only difference between the two is the amount of conscious awareness is present AT THE TIME OF THE EXPERIENCE.

You see, you only remember dreams AFTER you wake up.  Therefore, you're already filtering the experience through your brain (and through your sleepy mentality), and often times, your dream memories get really fuddled up.  

When you're OBE/AP, you experience things AS THEY HAPPEN, and you process the thoughts on the spot.  This makes things a lot more 'real' than dreams.

However, back to your point (sorry for rambling), I don't think we need to take all things in an OBE as symbolism, just as we shouldn't take all things in a dream as symbolism.  But, there are some things (namely when you see or hear things you don't understand) that I think you should look for other symbolic meanings before taking them literally.

[stephen~]

Nevermind things that don't exist in the real world, what about when you experience/witness things that do, and they are later confirmed ( the playing card test springs to mind)? How can it possibly be a dream then?

Whatever the explanation for the 'Alice' effect is, I don't think you can easily argue against what seems to be the basic observable fact that you can see, hear and read things that you couldn't have done unless you were 'there' ... or can you?

[shaman]

Both in dreams and in OBEs interpretation is needed at some times and is not needed at other times. The main question that remains is when exactly interpretation is needed and when exactly one can assumes that the OBE and Dream are translucid and depict a clear reality?

AS Jeff wrote, I agree that dreams and OBEs are exploring the same world but with a different state of the mind/consciousness. If this world comes at times with symbolism then in both cases (OBEs and dreams) interpretation is then needed.

IN the real time (physical plane) astral world you still explore the same world as in dreams. Some dreams are in the real time (physical plane), in that sens that you can dream you are in your house, appartement, work, room, etc... In both cases (OBE and DREAMS) you will be in  a place that you know with some little differences with the reality. What I am trying to say is that during dream we can access the same world we do during OBE, the difference is in our state of consciousness. And consequenlty in some instances interpretation is required.

[RJA]

quote:Originally posted by stephen~

Nevermind things that don't exist in the real world, what about when you experience/witness things that do, and they are later confirmed ( the playing card test springs to mind)? How can it possibly be a dream then?

Because when in an altered state of consciousness such as trance, dream, or OBE we have access to the collective unconscious that Jung theorized - and that collective unconsconscious contains what we might consider "supernatural" knowledge of all things.  I think like the story of the 3 blind men and the elephant, that when viewed from a higher/different dimension or perspective we would see that psychology, spirituality and science are all zero-ing in on the same "truth" - but are approaching it from different angles.

So, with regard to this thread topic, I agree that OBEs do not necessarily present us with objective reality.  In an altered state of consciousness we may partipate in a scene where aliens abduct people and hatch various schemes for invading the Earth or whatever.  I would take that as an individual tapping into the unconscious (collective or individual) and that it is not objectively true, but rather a symbolic message sent to the conscious from the unconscious.

In some sense, this must be true because people from all walks of life report visions that contradict each other in their meaning.  How many people over the centuries have reported religious visions indicating the imminent end of the world?  

A particular sentiment that i've read over and over again in the writings of various "mystics" is that everyone, when they gain access to higher knowledge, has a tendency to want to write a book or tell everyone about this secret knowledge that they are now privy too.  It's an understandable and yet misguided result of our egos getting puffed up and blabbing something to the world that wasn't meant for the world - which unfortunately usually has the effect of us missing the actual meaning of the experience or teaching because if we believe that it is meant for everyone else we won't analyze it in the context of our own personal spiritual journey.

In a sense this problem underscores the ultimate "problem of evil" - which is that the ego defends itself against truth because ultimate truth brings on the death of the ego.

[shaman]

RJA,

What you wrote is in accord with the testimony of NDErs where death of the physical body is only the end of the ego

http://www.iands.org/

And thanks much too for answering the original post on symbolism.

Shaman The Dreamer

[beavis]

I agree that dream = OBE, with different levels of awareness. But not all parts of a dream really exist. Some of them are made by your brain. Interpretation is necessary if consciousness is low enough, like a normal dream. But if you become aware enough, you will see closer to what is really there. I dont know if you can ever see completely literally. Sometimes when "reptiles are about to take over the world" that is really what is going to happen, and sometimes not.

[beavis]

stephen Nevermind things that don't exist in the real world, what about when you experience/witness things that do, and they are later confirmed ( the playing card test springs to mind)? How can it possibly be a dream then?

Dreams exist in the same space as the "real world" and are usually (but not always) dimensionally offset. Physicists agree these extra dimensions exist.

[Jeff_Mash]

quote:Originally posted by beavis

I agree that dream = OBE, with different levels of awareness. But not all parts of a dream really exist. Some of them are made by your brain.

You know, I used to think this way....but my viewpoint has changed since then.  

I am now of the mindset that the brain itself is not capable of any thought.  Imagine, if you will, the brain as being a computer processor.  All it does is process the thoughts which come into it from the nonphysical realm.  It does all the translation work, the same way wine doesn't come from the distillery which bottles it.

So as these thoughts (which are themselves a form of energy) enter into our processor (brain), the processor decides what they mean and how we interpret them.

With that in mind, I believe the brain is nothing more than a highly complex organ that is used by us to translate things, not to create things.  Dream thoughts don't originate from the brain, IMHO.  The brain just interprets them into an array of images, scenes, colors, etc.

[Nagual]

I've read somewhere that dreams originate from the solar plexus area/shakra...

Anyway, from my little experience, the only difference so far between dreams, lucid dreams and OBEs are the level of awarness.  And I did not see much difference between lucid dreams and OBEs, except the sensations of going out of your body...  But I think we just follow the same steps when we have normal dreams; it's just that we are not aware of it...

But the huge difference I could (and hope to) see is the day I will OBE in the RTZ!  And maybe realize that reality is just a dream... []

[beavis]

Jeff, why do you think brains have no intelligence of their own?

Neural networks, computer programs that use very basic simulated neurons, have been shown to have some intelligence. Some of them are smart enough to take the sound of your voice and change it to text. They are not told how to do it. They learn.

[jc84corvette]

OBE's are real, live up to it.

[alt0xFF]

Beavis, if you care, Artificial Intelligence, Neural Nets, and Machine Learning are my areas of specialization in my MS degree. The most important thing I learned is that even though these things may learn various hypotheses quite well, they are as dumb as old shoe consciousness-wise, even the most complex ones. They learn, but they do not think. They may simulate some applied "intelligence", but I do not believe any neural network can posess self-realization.

I second Jeff_Mash in his stance on role-of-brain issue. The consciousness is not a function of the brain.

[beavis]

alt0xFF, neural networks are stupid because they are usually organized into levels instead of randomly connected. Randomly connected networks are chaotic and have little to no intelligence because of bad algorithms. Also, they must have a short term memory to have consciousness (action potential changes temporarily).

[electricdreamer]

I can somewhat agree with this-but I have had OBEs where the only way I knew I was having the obe was from my strange sensations of movement-otherwise-me like I am awake-no anamolies at all-this doesnt seem like a dream at all.....but maybe I am just unimaginitive in my dreams...?

[Van-Stolin]

No one has anwsered the 'how can you see the card if it is just a dream' thing yet.  I think that they are connected, but more in that dreams happen in a sort of bubble in the astral where the concisnuss can make anything it wants.  Then when you are having an OBE you can explore outside of the bubble, becuase you know that there is more out there.  I wonder though.  You can create things in Astral by thinking about them or tricking your sub consiouss into thinking they are there, but the thought would have to go to the brain and then back to the astral to make the item, so I sort of think that it is still the brain that sends these out, but I might change that later.

Oh and the alice effect.  Your subconsiouss creates the door after you try to turn and instead change your view without moving your astral body, then when you fix it you will have two doors.  As for one that is just there when you get out.  I don't know how it could have gotten there.  I might have been created by other being passing through or something.  It could also be the representation of the enterence to your dream bubble and that is why it is so dreamy beyond it.

Astral entities though.  Hmm, if you weren't even thinking about them in the first place and then they just sort of appear, then how can you have conjured them?  That is the only thing I find wrong about it.

[Blue Giant]

Shaman - nice thread.
"Don't you think that one should interprete the OBE in the same manner as dreams?" Yes, I agree with you. I was thinking about what you said and made me thnk that even this "reality" I'm engaged in right now seems no more real than the dream. In fact my "realness" of this reality is one in which is a repititive stagnant realization that I ignorantly accepted. I know nothing of what is around me,it has been taught to me, therefore, I shall interpret every world-"real-time,o.b.e,a.p...etc" as an interpretation to discriminate what was once taught to me. The only realness is the fact that I've grown accustom to relating ideas  with a language which is not mine. This ability to use language gives one a sense of "realness". If there is something you've never seen before in this world and you saw this object for the first time your mind would race frantically, searching for an answer to what it was, which would result in giving you a sense of displacement in time and reality and that the object had a mystical sense to it. You could not apply a language to describe it so ,therefore, the object was no more real than that of a dream. What I mean is that, you were embraced visually, as well as the other four senses or more, to the object, but gave you no more understanding of what it was but the mere fact of experiencing it for what it was. Doesn't that sound like O.B.E.'ing and A.P.ing. What is this so called level of awareness? That I'm trying to understand. How can you be "more" aware in "real" time than in a dream. We think we are more aware in the real time because we are familiar with repitition. Yet if your in a dream...your in a dream. The dream is a dream which is a dream. You cannot say it is less real for the mere fact that it is existing. It's existence signifies the utmost degree of reality. However, you take out our language to describe our world and were simply left with a dream. That is, ofcourse, a visual stunning place where you can interact with it with your five or more senses. Perhaps, to solve the mystery behind symbolism, is finding the language that describes and relates all. Is the level of consciousness what determines the so called "realness". What if you switched the amount of participation amongst these "different" angles of perception. Perhaps, if all we did was O.B.E. and after we had O.B.E.'s then went to sleep and interacted with our "real-time" wouldn't it be foreign. IF we were in an O.B.E. state all the time one would accustom themselves with their environment with a language. This language we would use in the O.B.E. state and would become more familiar...more"real" and we would struggle to develop a language that described our so called waking life. Your on to something, Shaman...and by the looks of it have gotten me onto something...teehee. Maybe by experiencing different angles of perceptionand combining all of them..we are simply left to see that it is the absense of language that makes things more mysterious and suymbolical. I don't know... sorry for blabbing way too much...but the ball was rolling. Hey, I'm wondering if anyone has had a dream that has no images or sense experience derived from our world earth? Can one dream without a foundation?
Rusty

this time I blabbed way too much...

[Blue Giant]

Perhaps realness is language - the one in which relates, binds together and communicates...

-I'm outa here before someone reams me out-

[shaman]

Rusty,

sure the language is there for something, in that sens that it is with it that we learn to be able to understand more than we would otherwise. The concept of tomorrow, yesterday, next week, time in general is almost non existent in little children who have just started to speak. For them yesterday is anything that happened in the past, and tomorrow can be anytime in the future. It is the language together with the repetition that makes the physical world so real. You see everyday when I wake up I find the same world around me (though in my life I have move from place to place, country to country, continent to continent, ..), that world remains exactly the same, and it is subject to the same fundamental laws of Physics, and so on. However, each time I get back to the dream world I do not get back to the same place. It is always different, even when I get back to the same place, it never really looks twice the same. As to OBE, mine have usually ended in turning into a dream, but even there the world around me was not the same, there was no repetition. This is why it is so easy to understand and accept the physical world as a reality. Giving an interpretation to a dream is to relate that dream to the reality we have created in the physical world. Our unconscious part of us do not speak with us (usualy) with word, but it continues to speak with us in the same manner as when we were unable to talk, it communicates us feeling and stories, which is what we are giving to it. When we live something, we actually give our unconscious a story of it. The astral and dream have access to the "collective" consciousness (supposing that this is how it is), which for sure does not communicate with words, but again with pictures, feelings, stories. And these need to be interpreted in order of us (or maybe just for me?) to understand them in the reality of this physical world. It is thanks to that world that we can all communicate on this forum, and we do that using the English language (though mine could be better). The only way I can explain you something is through words. Now maybe if I was so skilled and you too we could meet in the astral and communicate by telepathie... well since this has not happened to me and that I haven't been able to find someone who could prove to me that it happened, then I need to continue and try to interprete, not only my dreams, OBE, but also my feelings and all the rest inside me, with words. This is as simple as that. As you said it correctly, it is the language. If for sure we initially have another way of communicating inside our own body/mind, and that the only way we can express that is with words, and that need to be interpreted, then for sure any other experience, whether a dream, an OBE, an NDE, all of them need interpretation. However, some interpretations are straightforward, like the ones that relate to our life in the physical world. However, all that is related to dream, OBE, NDE,... need to be interpreted very carefully.

As to the level of awareness in dreams and other state of the mind, that is not easy to answer. When I remember my dreams, I find that in some dream I was completely myself as when I am awake and the only difference is that I had to make an effort in the morning to rmemeber what happened. For things that happen in the physical world, I usually remember them without problem. After a long time I begin to forget them but I can still dig in to find them. After a longer time they seem to be lost for ever and I cannot remember them. The degree of awareness of awake is that one where you feel yourself and you do no forget what is hapening. Duing OBE that is what is hapening, during lucid dreams too, and during some vivid dreams too. However, for most of the common dreams it is not so, as you forget them or as you accept the dreams even if it does not look real (for example I dreamed of a guy with 4 eyes, but I did not thing it was unreal!). This is the degree of awareness as I understand it. The dream is a real experience, but it is not a reality. I dream that I have a limb cut off but the next morning I do have my limb back. If in the physical world I have a limb that is cut off, then it will remain so for the rest of my life. Reality is clearly first in the physical, it is our starting point, it is a stable world from which we can take support. WHile the dream world, the OBE world is not a stable world, it is changing without notice... and therefore one cannot relay on what 's there, since what's there can vanish. It does not mean that there are no realities there, but what there is different and need to be interpreted (assimilated) in order to be accepted in the physical world with our mind.

that was long too!

[Leyla]

Easy-

The proof that OBE's are not dreams is that so many are able to clearly describe things they saw when they returned to body.
They were not physically present, and yet they can describe it in detail.

My mother once did this duing a surgery, floated out of her body down the hall and around to the visiters area. She knew who was waiting to see her, what they were wearing, and things they had said while they waited.

This is actually pretty common, and I know several who have such stories.

[beavis]

Leyla The proof that OBE's are not dreams is that so many are able to clearly describe things they saw when they returned to body.

We can see real things while dreaming too. What you meant to say is that there is proof OBEs are real.

[Leyla]

Bevis: you took me out of context. Let me re-arrange the sentence for you.

The proof that OBE's are not dreams is that so many people *who were not physically present at the time* are able to clearly describe *things they could not have seen with their physical eyes* when they returned to body and describe them accuratly in detail.

[beavis]

Thats what I thought you meant. You assume that what most people usually do at night (dream) is completely contained in their own minds.

[shaman]

Leyla, and others maybe...

If you read the original posting, than it is more than what the title says. The title was there to attract readers, but the subject is mainly that when we OBE into another reality than the physical world, then I suggest than OBE are similar to dreams in that sens that they need interpretation, as dreams come in symbolism most of the time (but not always). As to your relative who had a surgery, many people who do have surgery and NDE have an OBE in the physical world and therefore what they see is exactly the physical. Here for sure no need for interpretation. But as beavis said dreams can also come in the physical. I can recall a dream that happened the next day to be the actual vision of a deja vu when I was a kid. The dream not only can be in the complete physical too, but can be in the future. More often however these are not in the physical, as many OBEs too are not close to the physical, and my suggestion is that they need interpretation. The last sentence is explainging the title of the posting with : dreams are OBEs....

Shaman the Dreamer

[Leyla]

>Thats what I thought you meant. You assume that what most people >usually do at night (dream) is completely contained in their own >minds.

*sigh* Okay- let's try this again.

No. I do not assume that. I have repeatedly been able to enter other people's dreams, direct the dream, and describe to them what they were dreaming about after they awoke, which usually isn't necessary because they remember me walking into their dream and somehow or another sensed that it was all "real."

Therefore - I, in fact, *do* know that a persons dream is not contained in their own mind.

I'd like a way to stop this because the person becomes paranoid I'm spying on them/controling them/plotting against them and wants to get away from me as fast as possible. I've lost friends this way. : (

[Leyla]

Dreams are OBE's- well of course.

I keep a dream journal next to my bed and have for years. I have figured out my dream "code" and have relied on them without doubt for about a year now to predict future events. My dreams have never-ever been wrong.

I had some close calls before, where it looked like it was going to be wrong, and then at the last possible moment things turned around. Sometimes this was good for me, and sometimes it was bad. Sometimes I wished I had been wrong.

But at least now I get warnings and know how to prepare.