Kath wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:42 pm
Hmmm. The non-lucid self is somewhat easily swayed. I do feel like the physical reinforces and helps provide a foundation for the consciousness. But... I dunno. About 15 years ago I got into the situation where I'd adjusted the consciousness enough that certain typical non-lucid reactions in dreams would trigger lucidity. For example, if I was scared, or if I felt weak and ineffectual, in a dream I mean, then that would trigger lucidity. Because my dreaming mind would pause and think "wait, that's not right. that's not right at all. That's stupid, I must be asleep." I would say that many typical non-lucid mental states would in effect "pinch me" into realizing I was non-lucid.
Also, habitual thinking carries over. If you habitually overcome obstacles, then a dream which would otherwise be a nightmare, could instead turn into more of an action movie than a horror movie. Where no matter what unwanted content the dreaming mind comes up with, another part of the dreaming mind just says "fuck your shit" and ups the ante' in a way that's personally empowering. I think this relates to a kinda fundamental re-training of the mind in terms of how you view your relationship with the universe.
I don't think about sleep and lucidity, as just one or another, as just two possible states, either 1 or 0, at least not any more (but used to). There seem to be thousand degrees in between. So yes, many dreams does start as just that another dreams, but some emotional triggers can push me up few steps, few steps up that ladder of lucidity. Sometimes can be fear, stress or other strong emotion. Sometimes even as little as seeing someone I know. Not from this physical world, but from out there.
Sometimes I'd be just running the dream script, walking somewhere and see one of my astral sidekicks just sitting somewhere at the corner, bored and waiting for something, and I stop, I look at them, and I'm like
"Wait a second, I know you..You look completely out of place, and you don't look like anyone my mind would be physically familiar with, but I know you..What's up fam?!" And then I might pause "the script" and would do some check-up what "functions" I have, usually I'd find some cognitive functions, sometimes even most of those, to be "offline", memory banks sleeping, even certain simple abilities like writing and reading English (or any language) can be unavailable. Sometimes I can recognize and remember people by the feel, but not by the "factual information" like names that may be stored in my brain somewhere.
I used to insist on having that full awareness and full cognitive functions, from my self, but later on I learned to relax, and just feel my way around, just go with the feels, recognize people by feel.
"I feel you, you feel me, lets feel our way to that other place that feels like this and that, and lets feel around there a bit. Lets get some new feels and stuff" that is perfectly fine for me now.
Because I find that trying to get my self even "more awake" can wake me up entirely and ruin good opportunity for some fun shenanigans, most of the brain is quite unnecessary and even burdensome anyway.
Actually, now that I think about it, I can't think of a single unpleasant non-lucid experience, in about 15 years. The very last one was a bad dream which involved bad memories I didn't want to relive, caused by an entity. When I woke I completely and totally lost my temper with the entity in question. I made a very public (spiritually speaking) spectacle of it. Kind of a "hey all y'all out there who find this shit amusing, don't blink". There are fates far, far worse than destruction. And it's possible that this act, as a very blatant 'deterrent', may have had a significant effect on entity dream tampering. There was a sense in entity interaction after that which might be called "street cred".
But I think my non lucid states of mind were changing by quite a lot before that.
I also put a lot of time & energy into kinda expanding consciousness beyond the physical limitation, as a sort of uh... i dunno what to call it. "spiritual transhumanism"?
"Unpleasant" can come in many flavours. I haven't had any real nightmares in decades, except those that I asked for (I used to have many dream weavers around, a bit fewer now). Or sometimes if I ask for a story, I can't complain if the story is not all rainbows and unicorn, they give me what they have. Some "pleasant" dreams can become very sour after waking up, and contrary some "unpleasant" dreams can became quite sweet and touching. Like the one with the cigarettes, I was terrified at first, but when I woke up and realized who made it for me, I was deeply touched by the effort put in to it, and all the small details, it was very sweet and unexpected that I only mentioned I appreciate if anyone can lend a hand in some way, and they went above and beyond so fast. I was still a bit terrified for couple hours, but very grateful. etc
But there certain "dreams" that are just unpleasant because of some feelings attached to things and there's no way around it. Like when someone close to me comes to tell me they are leaving, it's never pleasant, because
"But.. But.. I thought we gonna hang out together forever.. Booohooo.."
I tend to think of my mentor as kind of like the leviathan's leviathan idea you describe. To say she swims in a sea is not entirely accurate, she kind of 'is' the sea, and the moon reflecting on it, and she swims in herself at a scale I can appreciate. But I understand also the larger picture, and I enjoy getting soaking wet, hehe.
The rest all sounds the same though. Except that there isn't anything she doesn't know, so the limitation on answers to questions is based only on whether she finds the question relevant, the answer comprehensible, and she doesn't have a better time in mind for getting into that topic. Sometimes it takes a couple years to complete an answer, just because of how much I need to learn to understand my own question fully. Rather unlike any human I know, she finds questions which take years to answer accurately to be "fun and engaging", and likes that I ask many such questions.
Some years ago, there was one person I wanted to meet, or to be more precise, was very curious about certain popular "symbol" at that time, and was very curious if it was connected to something greater, to someone greater. Then one night I actually woke up in this cool place, like middle of the ocean with countless of small tropical island scattered around, and there was this super lovely lady, walking around with me, having just a casual chat, with her little ones running around, and I was playing with her little one, building stuff with them. At some point they all got overly excited a bit, and the lady tried to calm down, as gently as she could. And then I start noticing something "unusual". Every time she focus away from me and on to her little ones, she kind of freeze, and begin to slowly sink in to the ground, almost, like melting with the place, for just a moment, and right after all would go back to "normal", my "normal". But the very last moment of "freeze" the whole ground shook a little, and it suddenly hit me.. I looked at her, and was like
"wait a moment, are you.. are you.. all of this?..", but she just looks at me and smiled. And only then I realized, the whole place, the whole world was her. But even then I could not say that I was able to comprehend her entire being. In some sense, back then we both maybe just had similar "dream" for a short while, until we began to wake up to our differences, in scale and stuff. And before meeting her, I expected to meet some young egregore, which doesn't mean she is not young, but I definitely met "more of her" than I expected, by orders of magnitude.
I like the "old ones", but the young "leviathans" seem to be more tolerant and even more willing to join my shenanigans and adventures, and I'm more willing to join theirs. Even if the "old ones" think I'm a bad influence on the "kids".
Well, he's an early 20th century sci fi writer with a penchant for the occult. Which is a fun mix.
I'm not super into his works or anything though.
But the "oh that's too much, it'd break your mind" thing... he really kinda harps on that idea. And it throws me off somewhat.
In horror films, it's common for someone running away from a danger to encounter a locked door. In the movies that always stops their escape, like it's a metaphor for a blocked pathway. But myself, I soaked up all the viking genes in the family tree, and was raised on meat & dairy. If I were more deeply interested in sports, I could have done WNBA. Actually there's a whole story of psychology behind why I didn't go far in sports. So to begin with I tend to feel like a bull in a china shop. Like material goods and things are all undersized and way too fragile. And then add to that the whole home-grown "mushin/berserkergang/ energy-mind-body controlled/channeled frenzy" thing I tinker with out of curiosity of the limits of human physical ability. So when watching generic horror flick it's like:
"Really? A locked door is supposed to be an obstacle? How could a locked door be an obstacle? I mean, are you afraid you'll get fined for smashing it or something? cuz it kinda seems like an emergency. What, with that chainsaw guy chasing you..."
Cuz to my thinking, just about any door is about as meaningful as one of those paper sliding doors popular in Japan. Sure it divides a space, but you have to be careful not to damage it. So story elements like that in a horror film kinda take me out of the storytelling a bit.
But physical prowess isn't really my strong suit.
Any I feel similarly about Lovecraft's ideas about what would break a person's mind. It makes me feel like either he had a very weak mind, or he was like an elephant on a string, afraid to pull it.
"Really? A trans-dimensional complexity radiating an alien inhuman nature? Why would that be an obstacle? Sounds more like 'interesting' than 'scary' to me."
But I don't dislike his story telling because of it. It's just that aspect of his storytelling is a little immersion-breaking for me.
I think of it, that narrative about "mind breaking", more like main main spice, main thread on which everything else weaved on in that mythos, and perhaps it's not meant to be taken in direct sense, and it's more what separates it from others, gives it that very distinctive even exotic flavour. But I haven not yet explored that mythos much.
I strive to be, or even more so to become, large enough to be interesting. I'm somewhat ashamed of my relative lack of scale, and strive to correct it.
When is affection genuine? Cuz I don't think it's genuine if you're on the menu.
But if I'm wrong about the genuineness of said affection, then I'm kinda lost anyway. I'm already very deeply invested.
Besides, in every truly complex being there's a multitude of ways of being, all coexisting in a strange harmony. A part of her enjoys being treated as though she's not large at all. It scratches an itch of loneliness.
Well I personally don't think small size is an error in dire need to be corrected
I can have genuine affection for some bird, both in "running around" form and in "deep fried" form. Who's to say my affection is not genuine?
That doesn't mean yours don't have genuine affection or that she's about to eat you, some time in the next few centuries when you fatten up a little
Just saying things doesn't always follow our perception of some things, all things, like morals and right and wrong, good and bad, out there. Everyone likes company. I wouldn't eat my pets either, as long as there are other sources. And best pets those that can feed you without having any need to slaughter them, chickens that lay eggs makes great pets, I think.