Tom Waits: "You're Innocent When You Dream" (T or F?)

[Jingle_Bells]

First: this is my first post, and I'm delighted to finally have signed up for the forum. I'm a huge fan of Laura's work, am on the 4th Wave book, have read the "Secret History," and am in the middle of the 9-11 book and the High Strangeness book. I've been reading the SOTT page for a few months and find it to be one of the best news and editorial pages around. So, Laura and the rest of you at SOTT, just wanted to say: "Great work!"

As to the dreaming, I have two questions.

1) What level of reality, if any, do you think dreams occupy? I've only read a little of Jung's work and have read other researchers that believe dreams are a series of completely random images produced by the firing of neurons and a different neurotransmitter than is generated when awake.

2) As to the subject heading: I achieve lucidity almost every night and have a great deal of control over how I respond to different situations that arise from my demented imagination. I have to say, I do some pretty terrible things to other characters in my dreams--on purpose. Is it possible that I am damaging my "karma" or something? This has been going on for a while, and the question didn't even arise until I heard the Tom Waits song, "You're Innocent When You Dream." Actually, I don't know if that's the title, but it is one of the lyrics.

Any thoughts?

 

[christx11]

First: this is my first post, and I'm delighted to finally have signed up for the forum. I'm a huge fan of Laura's work, am on the 4th Wave book, have read the "Secret History," and am in the middle of the 9-11 book and the High Strangeness book. I've been reading the SOTT page for a few months and find it to be one of the best news and editorial pages around. So, Laura and the rest of you at SOTT, just wanted to say: "Great work!"

As to the dreaming, I have two questions.

1) What level of reality, if any, do you think dreams occupy? I've only read a little of Jung's work and have read other researchers that believe dreams are a series of completely random images produced by the firing of neurons and a different neurotransmitter than is generated when awake.

2) As to the subject heading: I achieve lucidity almost every night and have a great deal of control over how I respond to different situations that arise from my demented imagination. I have to say, I do some pretty terrible things to other characters in my dreams--on purpose. Is it possible that I am damaging my "karma" or something? This has been going on for a while, and the question didn't even arise until I heard the Tom Waits song, "You're Innocent When You Dream." Actually, I don't know if that's the title, but it is one of the lyrics.

Any thoughts?

What are your thoughts?

And what's with the "(T or F?) gag?
What in that statement requires a true or false answer?
Its seems like it would be totally dependent upon one's interpretation of the statement and more than likely coupled with a specific context. If you kill someone and then dream of killing them, that does not make you innocent of the crime.

You might want to elaborate and explain yourself a little more clearly on what it is that you are really asking.

What do you think Karma is?

Do you think you are damaging your karma?

It kind of depends on what you think karma is. My thought is that karma is not a thing that can be damaged.

As far as your first question, perhaps you should answer that yourself first so that others can see where you are coming from and have a better understanding of your mind first.

For instance, what do you mean by "level of reality"? Someone would have to know what you mean by "level of reality", to speak in any kind of understandable way with what you are even trying to ask by using such terms and equating it with dreams.

I am not trying to be harsh, but the lucidity that you speak of that you achieve with such ease almost every night in your dreams to me seems to be very much lacking in your waking state of this post.

Try simplifying things a little and provide to others what your undestanding of such things are first. How can someone answer you if we do not know what language you are speaking firstly?

 

[Ryan]

Any thoughts?

Well, the experiences I have had with lucid dreaming suggest to me that at best one can only achieve a slightly lesser state of consciousness than waking life. And since we are mostly "asleep" in waking consciousness anyway (as in being unware of our own motivations, feelings and thought processes, being identified with external events and tending to consider only ourselves), it isn't too much of an improvement to be "awake" in one's dreams.

In the physical state of sleep, all our senses are more or less shut down (although there is research indicating that loud noises and bright lights can register as sensations and influence the dreams of people who are asleep), and therefore any "reality" we experience is merely a subjective construct of our own consciousness. Generally the characters and objects we experience in a dream are aspects of ourselves, although I don't discount that sometimes it's just "mental decompression" and ascribing any particular meaning is a waste of time.

If you do "pretty terrible things" to other characters in your dreams on purpose, then perhaps you should ask yourself exactly what those characters represent, why you "generate them", and why you feel compelled to do these things to them?

That's my take on it, anyway.

 

[kenlee]

As to the subject heading: I achieve lucidity almost every night and have a great deal of control over how I respond to different situations that arise from my demented imagination. I have to say, I do some pretty terrible things to other characters in my dreams--on purpose. Is it possible that I am damaging my "karma" or something? This has been going on for a while, and the question didn't even arise until I heard the Tom Waits song, "You're Innocent When You Dream." Actually, I don't know if that's the title, but it is one of the lyrics.

Any thoughts?

I understood Gurdjieff to say that when we sleep (deeply) then the ordinary flow of the free association of thoughts are suspended and our thinking, feeling and moving centers become disconnected from each other so that they might recharge their energies. Our dreams would then be crosstalk or "partial leakage" between these centers. When we have a deep sleep where we don't remember our dreams then the centers are "recharging."

These dreams that you speak of probably go on in your waking state also but you are unaware of them. Possibly they even motivate you. If you play video games this might explain why you can "control" the kind of dreams that you mention. But I don't really know since I'm no expert on dreams. However, when you are sleeping, your conscience might cause you to have this "crossover talk" between your centers since conscience "wakes us up" and you can't have conscience and dream at the same time. So your conscience might be trying to tell you something and as a result you are partially awake in your dreams. As I said I'm no expert. I'm sure there are many other possibilities.

 

[Jingle_Bells]

What are your thoughts?

I always considered dreams to be no more significant than video games, but I know some cultures (and some on this forum) regard them as having significance. Therefore, I was wondering what other people thought.

And what's with the "(T or F?) gag?

Not a gag.

What in that statement requires a true or false answer?

Doesn't require any answer. It's simply the title of the post.

Its seems like it would be totally dependent upon one's interpretation of the statement and more than likely coupled with a specific context.

Only dependent on answer to question 1 of my post.

If you kill someone and then dream of killing them, that does not make you innocent of the crime.

I don't understand what this statement means. Obviosly you're not innocent if you kill someone in real life.

You might want to elaborate and explain yourself a little more clearly on what it is that you are really asking.

The main thing I am asking is part 1 of my original post.

What do you think Karma is?

I always considered it to be your spiritual intelligence/development. You're "frequency tuning?"

Do you think you are damaging your karma?

No.

It kind of depends on what you think karma is. My thought is that karma is not a thing that can be damaged.

I always considered the acquiring of negative energies to be damaging to spiritual well-being.

For instance, what do you mean by "level of reality"? Someone would have to know what you mean by "level of reality", to speak in any kind of understandable way with what you are even trying to ask by using such terms and equating it with dreams.

I believe that defining or even comprehending reality is beyond the scope of the human mind. "Level of reality, if any" asks whether the dreamscape is operating on any level beyond one's personal experience, basically. What do you expect, a dissertation?

I am not trying to be harsh, but the lucidity that you speak of that you achieve with such ease almost every night in your dreams to me seems to be very much lacking in your waking state of this post.

For me, lucid dreaming is not any sort of enlightening experience. It's like being the main character in a very elaborate and bizarre video game. Sometimes things seem to be extremely significant, but when you wake up they usually seem absolutely ridiculous. Just like in anyone's dreams where they wake up with any memory of them. Thus, why I asked question 1 of my posting.

Well, the experiences I have had with lucid dreaming suggest to me that at best one can only achieve a slightly lesser state of consciousness than waking life.

And since we are mostly "asleep" in waking consciousness anyway (as in being unware of our own motivations, feelings and thought processes, being identified with external events and tending to consider only ourselves), it isn't too much of an improvement to be "awake" in one's dreams.

In the physical state of sleep, all our senses are more or less shut down (although there is research indicating that loud noises and bright lights can register as sensations and influence the dreams of people who are asleep), and therefore any "reality" we experience is merely a subjective construct of our own consciousness. Generally the characters and objects we experience in a dream are aspects of ourselves, although I don't discount that sometimes it's just "mental decompression" and ascribing any particular meaning is a waste of time.

I agree.

If you do "pretty terrible things" to other characters in your dreams on purpose, then perhaps you should ask yourself exactly what those characters represent, why you "generate them", and why you feel compelled to do these things to them?

I have no control over the situations/scenes or attributes/personalities/actions of any characters in my dreams. Why I generate them is a complete mystery to me. I feel compelled to do the things I do because they are fun and I am not allowed to act out such things in waking life--just like a video game. I've tried to do "constructive" things in my dreams, but have had no success. Every time I try to come up with creative ideas or do something serious, my dream makes a mockery of my attempts.

I understood Gurdjieff to say that when we sleep (deeply) then the ordinary flow of the free association of thoughts are suspended and our thinking, feeling and moving centers become disconnected from each other so that they might recharge their energies. Our dreams would then be crosstalk or "partial leakage" between these centers. When we have a deep sleep where we don't remember our dreams then the centers are "recharging."

That has been my working assumption, generally.

These dreams that you speak of probably go on in your waking state also but you are unaware of them. Possibly they even motivate you. If you play video games this might explain why you can "control" the kind of dreams that you mention. But I don't really know since I'm no expert on dreams.

This is a bit ironic: I haven't played a single video game since I was in about 6th grade.

However, when you are sleeping, your conscience might cause you to have this "crossover talk" between your centers since conscience "wakes us up" and you can't have conscience and dream at the same time. So your conscience might be trying to tell you something and as a result you are partially awake in your dreams. As I said I'm no expert. I'm sure there are many other possibilities.

This is not true. I do have a conscience in my dreams and there are many things that are presented as options in my dreams which I do not do out of conscience.