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because poetry is the waking dream
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Dream Steps - a Bloneironicweblog for the exploration of dreams - oneironics
August 17 Emotion in MotionI believe that emotions in dreams are often so strong because (1) the unconscious is trying to get our attention and...
...(2) we actually experience these powerful emotions during the day, but suppress the feelings.
However, Dr. Rubin A. Naiman presents me with a new idea in his book, Healing Night.
Naiman says that because we can't express the dream emotion through movement--as we can in waking life--the feeling becomes more powerful. He writes:
"Dreaming teaches us about a fascinating relationship between emotion and motion, between our feelings and movement.
"The word motion lies at the root of the word emotion. Interestingly, the nervous system pathways that control our voluntary muscles are rooted in the emotional center of the brain. Emotional energies in the brain generally flow into our muscles, resulting in a proclivity to move.
"Whether or not we choose to express emotions through some form of motion, we commonly say that we are moved by something that we feel strongly about.
"When the flow of emotional energy from the brain to our muscles is inhibited by sleep paralysis, our emotions cannot be expressed and discharged into the waking world. Depending on the intensity of the dream, we may experience a powerful backwash of emotional energies reverbertating within us, untempered by expression, raw and shadowy."
In any case, I believe our strong dream emotions tell us the truth.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 13 Good As GoldU.S. swimmer Brendan Hansen dreamed that he won gold the night before competing in the 100 meter breaststroke at this year's Olympics.
But he did not win the gold medal. He came in fourth, I think.
So what is the purpose of such a dream? It seems like a cruel tease.
Well, from what I can see, our greatest accomplishments usually go unheralded--unrecognized not only by the world, but also by ourselves.
So I believe Hansen's dream tells the truth. The dream is not cruel, but generous. I think the dream wants him to realize how much he's actually accomplished.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 10 Un-Macho Man Meets Macho ManI've found that you can have the same dream, over and over, without realizing it...
...because recurrent dreams can use different settings and characters.
In a recent dream (see August 3 entry), I bail out of a dangerous situation. A few nights later, I do the same thing in a different scenario:
I'm upstairs in a dark shed when a militia man herds some Iraqi women and children into the room and makes them lie on the dirt floor. I realize that he's going to gun them down. I run outside and look for help, but find no one.
Actually, it's good that I don't find any help--because it's my problem to handle.
I knew that if I tried to stop the macho militia man, I'd probably be shot myself. But there was no other way to save the women and children. I must surmount my fear and confront this killer. That's the goal of this dream: to get me to confront this shadow figure.
I may be the most un-macho man alive, but if this macho man is in my dream, he must be part of me. Something within me wants to destroy what is nurturing and full of the promise of life. This militia man sees those qualities as foreign and dangerous.
I need to understand him. I need to be aware of him. That's how I can stop him.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 06 Find Yourself in the DarkDr. Naiman advises us to take back our "Healing Night". I must admit, he makes a good case:
"I believe we may suffer from a darkness deficiency. Recent findings suggest that there may be beneficial effects associated with time awake in darkened space.
"Just as light stimulates the release of serotonin, which energizes us, darkness encourages the production of melatonin, the key neurohormone in our night biology, sleep, and dreams.
"Excessive light at night along with other features of modern life conversely inhibit melatonin, dampening the positive effects of darkness.
"Our very consciousness is in need of repair. Like the attention deficit world we live in, it is scattered--segregated, even fragmented. Sleep and dreams are sharply set apart from waking alhtough fragments of these states now cut and bleed into one another.
"We see an epidemic of wakefulness intruding into our sleep and dreams as insomnia. The resulting sleep and dream debt seeps back into our wakefulness as the dangerous mental smog of daze. We mistake the jittery buzz of counterfeit energies for natural vitality. Half-awake in our sleep and half-asleep in our waking, we are never completely at rest and seldom fully conscious."
The above passage can be found in the book Healing Night by Rubin R. Naiman, Ph.D.
© 2008, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.blogspot.com audacious audio: http://soultime.livejournal.com email: dreamstepsblog@hotmail.com August 03 You Can't Put Fire On HoldOn one level, this dream works as a fable...
In the dream...
I go to the house next door, though I know no one's home. As I arrive, fire jumps from an outdoor hot water heater to a window.
I rush back home and call "911". I tell the operator it's an emergency, but still, she puts me on hold--and keeps me on hold.
I watch, helplessly, as fire engulfs my neighbor's house. I realized the flames could quickly spread to my place.
Is this fair? I do the right thing, but it backfires.
Or did I do the right thing?
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Invite as friend
