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The Dream Garden is a place for anyone interested in discussing and sharing experiences about dreaming, meditation, visualization, dream interpretation, dream analysis and symbology, dream phenomena and dreaming traditions of shamanism for transformation and healing of self, others and the earth.

Image courtesy of Jeanne at http://www.bluemarbleinspirations.ca/index.htm

...(more)“In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.” Abram L. Urban

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.” Anais Nin

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart… . Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung

“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.” Carl Jung

“But why are people interested in learning to be conscious in their dreams? According to my own experience, and the testimony of thousands of other lucid dreamers, lucid dreams can be extraordinarily vivid, intense, pleasurable, and exhilarating. People frequently consider their lucid dreams as among the most wonderful experiences of their lives.

If this were all there were to it, lucid dreams would be delightful, but ultimately trivial entertainment. However, as many have already discovered, you can use lucid dreaming to improve the quality of your waking life. Thousands of people have written to me at Stanford telling how they are using the knowledge and experience they have acquired in lucid dreams to help them get more out of living.” Stephen Laberge

“Pause now to ask yourself the following question: “Am I dreaming or awake, right now?” Be serious, really try to answer the question to the best of your ability and be ready to justify your answer.” Stephen Laberge

“I suggested that dreams are simulations of the world created by our perceptual systems. The introduction to waking perception that you just read will help you understand this theory.

Consider, first of all, how sleep modifies the process of perception. During REM sleep, as you learned in chapter 2, sensory input from the outside world and body movement are both suppressed, while the entire brain is highly active. The activity of the brain raises certain schemas above their perceptual thresholds. These schemas enter consciousness, causing the dreamer to see, feel, hear, and experience things not present in the external environment.

Ordinarily, if you were to see something that wasn't really there, contradictory sensory input would rapidly correct your mistaken impression. Why doesn't the same thing happen during dreaming? The answer is because there is little or no sensory input available to the brain for correcting such mistakes.” Stephen Laberge

“If you are having a dream and you think it's real, it can get very scary. Say you are dreaming you are tightrope walking across Niagara Falls. If you fall off, you plunge to your death. So you are walking very slowly, very carefully. Then suppose you start lucid dreaming, and you realise it's all a dream. What do you do? Become more cautious and careful? Noo, you start jumping up and down on the tightrope, you do flips, you bounce around, you have a ball - precisely because you know isn't real. When you realise it's a dream you can afford to play.

The same thing happens when you realise that ordinary life is a dream, just a movie, just a play. You don't become more cautious, more timid, more reserved. You start jumping up and down and doing flips, precisely because it's all a dream, it's all pure Emptiness. You don't feel less, you feel more - because you can afford to. You are no longer afraid of dying, and therefore you are not afraid of living. You become radical and wild, intense and vivid, shocking and silly. You let it all come pouring through, because it's all your dream.

Life then assumes its true intensity, its vivid luminosity, its radical effervescence.” Ken Wilber

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” Carl Jung

“Learn the true topography; the monstrous and wonderful archetypes are not inside you, not inside your consciousness; you are inside them, trapped and howling to get out.” R. A. Lafferty

“Dreaming is the vehicle that brings dreamers to this world,” the emissary said, “and everything sorcerers know about dreaming was taught to them by us. Our world is connected to yours by a door called dreams. We know how to go through that door, but men don't. They have to learn it.” Carlos Castaneda

“Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.” Chang Tao-ling

“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Albert Einstein

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one.” Albert Einstein

“Now here is a key: you want to make it real and present in the realm of your consciousness. You don't say “I'm going to do such and such” - it already has happened. Now, is consciousness real? It exists and it is very powerful. The idea is to have this mesh between your consciousness - your visualization - and the so-called material world.” George Leonard

“Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.” Carlos Castaneda

“A shaman is a healer of relationships, between mind and body, between people and circumstances, between humans and Nature, and between matter and spirit.” Serge Kahili King

“…find the courage to break those agreements that are fear-based and claim your personal power.” Don Miguel

About This Room

This is an alphabetical list of dream symbols and their meanings to which we would like you to add yours to make this comprehensive. To add any please message Ian with the symbol and what it means to you in...(more)

Active Members

Ian Gardner

cultivator

Paul

moderator

Marky Mark

Consciousness Explorer

sandy

Activist and Ambassador

sophia

LivingLove

willowspirit

Solve et Coagula

kuel

helpful soul

Lynda

See all 790 members...

Room Activity

willowspirit posted a reply to the conversation "Apparently meaningless dream clutter." ()

Marky Mark posted a reply to the conversation "Apparently meaningless dream clutter." ()

Ian Gardner posted a reply to the conversation "Apparently meaningless dream clutter." ()

J~E~S~S posted a reply to the conversation "Apparently meaningless dream clutter." ()

Ian Gardner started a new conversation - Apparently meaningless dream clutter. ()

Ian Gardner posted a reply to the conversation ""The mind is the builder."" ()

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Group Grapevine

Jenny I just wanted to say how much I enjoy this group and reading of your experiences and queries in regard to dreams. For me, this is the "richest" pod on Gaia and I haven't even been anywhere close to half way through the discussions and posts. Thanks to all who contribute and to Ian for growing this group! (3 months ago)

jitendar I'm really starting to like this group! ^_^ (6 months ago)

martha I like this Grapevine thing! Good idea Paul! Thank you! And thank you Ian for the message. (9 months ago)

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	Thread Started	Replies	Last Post
NOTE: All symbols are personal to the dreamer but man...	Feb 5, 2007 by Ian Gardner	10	Feb 12, 5:19 PM by bensoph
Apparently meaningless dream clutter. We all have a lot of dreams, perhaps most dream...	Jul 24 by Ian Gardner	4	Jul 25, 6:49 AM by willowspirit
"The mind is the builder." Over relatively recent times I have had a serie...	Jul 20 by Ian Gardner	2	Jul 22, 1:01 AM by Ian Gardner
Houses, Homes and Buildings Houses, Homes and Buildings are often represent...	May 21, 2008 by Marky Mark	1	May 25, 2008, 1:19 AM by Ian Gardner
i connected here last night I saw ohmsmoon -from the Gratitude Chain'ss...	Apr 12, 2008 by sandy	10	May 20, 2008, 8:51 AM by dailyplanit
Weather. 1. Relates to the dreamer's state of being ...	Feb 12, 2007 by Ian Gardner	0	Feb 12, 2007, 11:53 PM by Ian Gardner
Movement & Position. At the back: Past; shadow; things we ignore; gu...	Feb 5, 2007 by Ian Gardner	0	Feb 5, 2007, 11:23 PM by Ian Gardner
People. Note: 1. The presence of people in dreams can b...	Feb 5, 2007 by Ian Gardner	0	Feb 5, 2007, 4:38 PM by Ian Gardner
Locations. Note: If the location is 'life familiar'...	Feb 4, 2007 by Ian Gardner	0	Feb 4, 2007, 5:28 PM by Ian Gardner
Colours. Note: The brighter the colours the brighter the...	Feb 4, 2007 by Ian Gardner	0	Feb 4, 2007, 1:29 PM by Ian Gardner

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