Posted on 01/09/2011 6:55:06 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
Booklist review of "Conscious Dreaming: A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life," by Robert Moss, on Amazon.com:
This is more and better than just a book about how to remember and understand dreams, although it is that kind of book and as good as any such recently published. Moss covers all the expected terrain, from how to train the mind to recall its nightly narratives, through how to unravel meaning from them, to how to start and sustain a dream group. But his book excels because he extends its purview to include shamanic dreaming, dreams of dead loved ones, healing dreams, angels, and spirit guides. Moss explores these more esoteric matters with great skill. Taking his cue from ancient and tribal traditions that see in dreams more than a set of symbols connected to individual psychology, Moss offers evidence that in dreams we connect with the transpersonal. Thus, an angel in a dream could be the dreamer's better self--or a real angel, come to help the dreamer through life's challenges. Moss' unusual approach to a perpetually intriguing subject is likely to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. --Patricia Monaghan
Con-science dreaming. Makes sense to me. Al Gore? The Leftist mentality in general? AGW? Government is the answer?
Here’s a documentary that gives interesting insight.
Low, You may need a murderer.
Alan Sparhawk of the band Low is featured - great band, brilliant musician, but a few years ago he had what can be labeled a psychotic split. He began acting oddly, with mental issues likely from drug use, and began to ponder the biblical stories where God orders killings and other tasks of faith (Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, etc.)
It’s meant to be a band documentary, but in context is an interesting study in lucid dreams, OT vs the modern day, etc.
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflID=6751556&md5=33bce1658e01db796f924221cd487d03
I think it is possible that Jared may have experienced a psychotic break and confused that with “conscious dreaming”
When you read his “mind control” stuff he seems to think he is God controlling others
As to what he was studying there was a mention of poetry
Maybe the left should attack poetry for a while and see if that flies
vert trippy movie
vert = very .....my mind is going
Exactly what I’ve been wondering.
The Inception movie is about Lucid Dreaming, you know, like ‘Conscious Dreaming’........just saying.....
There was a lot of ‘shoot ‘em up’ in that movie yet barely anyone died, this murderer thinks he’s a walking, conscious dreamer....I wonder if there’s a ‘movie going’ connection.
It is curiously topical - I’ll say that.
Not to my knowledge. He did have issues with separating reality from fantasy.
Hmmmm...
That's the central teaching of "A Course in Miracles," the idea that you create your own reality through your own thoughts. The "Law of Attraction" is that you attract good or bad things by having good or bad thoughts, or good or bad "energy."
It is this belief that causes depression and psychosis, because people who suffer from disease or misfortune are taught that they are the cause of their own suffering. The only logical escape is suicide, as Sharon Lee Giganti, a former New Age guru, experienced with some of her disciples (see my original post above).
Castenada recounted a dream where a spirit guide revealed this teaching to him:
Castaneda is told that all he has to do to stay is to state his intention to do so out loud, because "[e]verything you say out loud in this world is for keeps." Id. Castaneda is suspicious that he is being tricked, but the voice tells him, "I cannot lie to you, because a lie doesn’t exist . . .
I’m sort of leery of speculating in this direction, but Jared Loughner was an only child, his mother at least was of the right age to have been a part of this scene in some way, 53 years old at present. She’s with the Audubon Society in Pima County, also with “Agua Caliente,” a park. Castaneda had a thing about going to the desert.
Could be completely unwarranted, but the hints of it are there. He was exposed to it at some point and not necessarily via that course at the community college, which to my ears sounds pretty surface and basic.
I couldn’t get it to play. Don’t have the right plug-in.
First, I agree with St_Thomas_Aquinas that there can be a confluence of a vulnerable subject and a dangerous practice. New Age theory has a specific view of reality which encourages “magical thinking,” giving it the veneer of social acceptability. It amounts to the removal of an important layer of inhibition that would otherwise act as a check on some unstable minds.
Second, schizophrenia is a disease without a clear, uniform definition (despite what you may have heard) and therefore without a clear, uniform etiology. Put another way, you can’t be sure what caused it if you don’t really know what it is, and you can’t be sure what it is if you don’t really know what caused it. Truth be told, schizophrenia has become a catch-all term for a variety of manifestations, many of which cannot be defined in purely biological terms. There are diagnosed schizophrenics who are not the victim of “broken brains” so much as “broken thought patterns,” and practices which seriously affect those thought patterns cannot be automatically dismissed as unimportant.
Third, surrendering to the purely biological view of mental illness was one of our early mistakes in the slide to Progressivism, which is inherently materialistic and views the human mind as no more than the sum of its chemical reactions. Hence, under that view, any “bad thinking” can be corrected via purely chemical, physical coercion, with no reference to spirit or old-fashioned notions of individual moral responsibility. From which we get such things as those infamous Soviet psychiatric hospitals for those with “bad” political thoughts.
So, while there certainly can be mental disorders with biological factors, a purely biological view of mental illness with no allowance for a transcendent individual responsibility leads directly to the nightmare of the “therapeutic state,” because it shuts the victim of mental illness out of the one area where they might really find a cure, their own individual power of self-control. And that is too much to give up, both for them, and for those around them.
I've had a hard time understanding schizophrenia myself, based on the little that I've read. Now I understand why.
“He was a violent pot user with drug infected mentality.”
Indeed. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And drugs waste minds. Self-medicating mentally ill people make their problems worse with drugs, so any issues (mental) he had were magnified.
The real mystery is why he wasnt caught and treated sooner ... the sherriff may be casting stones to avoid his own mistakes:
That's exactly right. "Conscious dreaming" is a New Age practice. New Age teachings like "A Course in Miracles" are malignant because disciples are taught that they can create their own reality simply by the "energy" or "vibrations" that they give off, whether bad or good. (Yes, that's what "Good Vibrations" is all about). Practitioners are often motivated by simple greed. Practitioners often become psychotic (detached from reality; see the link to Sharon Lee Giganti in my original post) or suicidal, since they come to believe that they are causing any disasters that befall them.
I believe that Loughner thinks he is in a dream and that he can do whatever he wants because nothing is real.
I believe the same thing. I suspect that his mug shot smirk derives from the fact that he "knows" that his situation is simply a dream that he is ultimately in control of.
Buddhists understand that life and self are an illusion...The only way to escape this illusion is to see what true reality is and that begins with understanding that reality is internal. Love and compassion are the guiding principles for all those are still caught up in the world of suffering...
You sound like a good-hearted person. Christians believe that God, the transcendent reality, is love. But love and truth are convertible terms, that is, they are essentially the same thing, but aspects of the same thing apprehended in different ways by the human person. For example, love is the good of the heart; truth is the good of the mind. God is One/Love/Good/Truth/Being (His existence, unlike ours, does not depend on any other thing).
If any of this interests you, I would encourage you to read St. Thomas Aquinas. A great (and mercifully brief) resource is Aquinasonline.com.
I think Buddhists and Hindus would agree with the great Christian mystics who teach that under it all, is love. But Christians diverge with Hindus regarding the notion of Truth. Hindus teach that God or Ultimate Reality transcends Western notions of "true" and "false." But this begs the question: Is it true? Is it true that God transcends categories of "true" and "false"? To say that it is true that God transcends truth is a logical contradiction, and therefore meaningless.
My only struggle comes from having this knowledge and living in reality for long periods of time because so many around me are still caught up and it is difficult to maintain the peace. I guess thats why so many monks isolate themselves..lol. The reason for all of this discussion is that I think Loughner only got half the message
Again, I sense that you are a good-hearted person, and I don't mean any of my statements to be critical of you. But the seeds of Loughner's New Age beliefs lie in Hinduism, the teachings of which can engender indifference to this world and often, other people. I would cite Indian society as evidence of this.
I wonder how much drug use could contribute to his dream beliefs. If he is just in a drug induced psychotic condition, I'll bet that once he's detoxed, that smirk will disappear real quick.
I suppose it has something to do with what you DO with your lucid dreams. I have them occasionally (non-drug induced). I don’t go looking for an adviser from a a spiritual plane.
Yes. If you read my original post, you'll see that I've been referring to is the New Age practice, which has similarities to astral projection and spiritualism.
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