How to determine what is and isn't "real"

[SeekingTheTruth]

This question is similar to Robby's but isn't soley about other people if that even makes any sense.

Much of what we dream is internal, but from my understanding they can have astral qualities. Most of it I can't recall, but a few days ago I had a dream somebody or a group of people were trying to kill me. Why, I don't know. The pain I felt from being stabbed in my side was so real though. And yes, I know that dreams always feel real blah blah blah. Could those who tried hurting me in my dream have been real? And how do you distinguish between your mind and the astral?

[ButterflyWoman]

Oh, boy. I used to have really bad nightmares, starting when I was really young. When I was a child, they were your usual "chased by a monster" dreams. Then as I got older they changed into things like Nazis, demons, and various kinds of assassins. In many of the dreams, they DID catch me and stab me, shoot me, one dream had me in the electric chair... In several dreams I have "died" (it's not true that if you die in a dreamscape you really die, and I am living proof of that).

I believe now, with hindsight and with the spiritual and metaphysical knowledge that I've managed to accumulate, that these were more or less real. I really was, I believe, being tormented by negs of various kinds (the Nazi image is partly because I was living in a haunted building in Germany at the time and partly because, I know now, of an apparent past life). It took years of these dreams before I finally learned how to triumph over the pursuers. Yes, I definitely believe it was real, if not literal.

Was I astral when having these dreams? Possibly. I've had a lot of dreams that I'm sure were astral. Does it matter? Maybe not. The dreams were telling me something true, that I was under attack. Maybe they were literal negative entities, maybe they were just my own many "issues", but I was definitely being sabotaged and hunted, as it were.

Hope that doesn't totally freak you out. :) I'm just sharing my own experience, and actually, most of my weird/scary dreams were NOT literal. For example, I used to have lots and lots of nightmares about having to live in a haunted house, and now I know that the "ghosts" were just my own issues and stuff that scared me too much to think about (I did eventually get rid of them, though, I'm happy to say).

Unless it becomes a pattern, I wouldn't be too concerned. Everyone has freaky dreams at least once in a while.

[Alaskans]

On someones post I think I heard it mentioned that if you try to read something you can tell if it is a dream or an ap?

[CFTraveler]

Not necessarily- I find this to be not true in my case. I usually can remember numbers and short sentences in my dreams, and I can also see text in the hypnagogic state and if I have a pen and paper handy quickly write it down. The problem is in remembering it, if I don't jot it down immediately.
The rule about numbers and letters changing is equal for both dreams and OBE- I think it depends on the person and the level of lucidity of the particular experience.
About the only time I've verified an OBE to be what it is was by looking at my hands and verifying their 'meltyness' (see Melting hands phenomenon), but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that hasn't worked for someone somewhere.

[ranlinra13]

Usually when my dream is psychological or relating to my physical life, but not a prediction, the dream feels real - but distant. It is more like feeling like something that happened to you when you were 5 compared to something that happened yesterday. So, when it is more of an attack - in the astral realm or even another dimension, it feels like it just happened, or like it is happening even when I'm awake.

I also feel more anxiety or a need to immediately do something to protect myself when it is a real attack.

When I don't know - I then go into a journey to see what it is. So, you could buy a drumming cd or Robert's HemiSync cd's also work. I would get comfortable, warm and put a blindfold on - the darker the better. I would protect my space prior - circle of sea salt - smudging - that sort of thing - light a candle. I would express my intent. "I plan to go back into my dream only partially to see if this is a real attack on me or what the dream is trying to tell me. So, I would begin to look back into my dream remembering every detail - smells, textures, sound, light, colors, feelings, I would then create a space prior to going into the dream. Say - a safe room with two windows - one if it is more of a symbolic dream on the left, and an astral window - or window to the other dimension if it is real. See yourself standing looking into the windows. If you look into the left and it has nothing to do symbolically, you will see only darkness. If you look into the right, you may see yourself there being attacked. You may lift open the window and crawl in partially to see more. If you do so, you may want to shapeshift into darkness, or crow/raven or turn into air. You will be able to ask to see who is doing this to you and you will see more clearly your attackers. Just note that even real astral attack dreams sometimes also have symbolic meaning psychologically.

Hope that helps.

[CFTraveler]

That's cool. When I'm not sure I just take a salt shower. Just in case.

[Nick----]

I feel intuition is the best way to see if something is coming from yourself or outside yourself, sometimes I have meet dream characters who I feel aren't part of my dream. They just don't feel the same, or it seems really foreign. Self-honesty is important, sometimes I dream disturbing things, but when I look at them honestly a lot of times they seem to have come from me, other times they don't.

[zipppy2006]

I've been reading Carlos Castanada's book "The Art of Dreaming." And he says that its your energy body that can determine whether something is real or not. According to Carlos, you need to SEE the energy of dreaming objects, and if they emit their own energy, they are real, but if they are made of phantom energy (your imagination), then it is an ordinary dream. It's a good read I would recommend it.

[RyanParis]

Astral travel experiences, unlike dreams, unfold in a logical sequence of events, just as waking experiences do, rather than a haphazard jumble of images, people and locations.

[Jake]

Astral travel experiences, unlike dreams, unfold in a logical sequence of events, just as waking experiences do, rather than a haphazard jumble of images, people and locations.

Very true.. at least for me... sometimes, when OBE,,, I can see dream imagery very clearly as it starts to 'creep' in... i can definately tell the difference... easy to avoid some memory problems if I avoid the noid(falling asleep during obe)

[The Cusp]

I've been reading Carlos Castanada's book "The Art of Dreaming." And he says that its your energy body that can determine whether something is real or not. According to Carlos, you need to SEE the energy of dreaming objects, and if they emit their own energy, they are real, but if they are made of phantom energy (your imagination), then it is an ordinary dream. It's a good read I would recommend it.

I was going to recommend the same thing. The technique in that book was just to point your baby finger at what you want to see with the intention of seeing it's energy.

The vast majority of things in your dreams should have no energy, and will just fall apart or shift into something else. I've yet to pull this off, but it's been one of my main lucid goals.

If you suspect there may be other people hunting you down in your dreams, I would think that they would be masters at captivating and manipulating your attention. To me the way they do this is quite distinct from normal dream characters. Pay attention not to what they do, but how they do it.
Here's a good thread on the topic of so called Dream Walker and Night Stalkers, you may find it helpful.
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/sho ... hp?t=37621 (http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=37621)

[ButterflyWoman]

Astral travel experiences, unlike dreams, unfold in a logical sequence of events, just as waking experiences do, rather than a haphazard jumble of images, people and locations.

My dreams are only rarely a haphazard jumble of images, people, and locations. They always have a narrative. They do something have the "and then the scene changed" thing, but I've had that when consciously phasing.

So unless I go astral in my sleep more than not, I think it's not a safe assumption that everyone's dreams are haphazard.

[Pneumaphor]

Different kinds of people have different kinds of dreams at different times, this has been shown in the labratory.

In Robert L Van de Castle's "Our dreaming mind" a particular study is focused on in which the number of male characters in women's dreams increased during the week prior to mensturation and decreased at the opposite end of the monthly cycle!

Here is the intro to the chapter:

"A succinct summary of the factors that influence dream content was given nearly 150 years ago by P. Jessen, a German psychologist:

The content of a dream is invariably more or less determined by the individual personality of the dreamer, by his age, sex, class, standard of education, and habitual way of living, and by the events and experiences of his whole previous life."

Here's another relevant snippet:

"Several interesting sex differences were present in our study of children's dreams. At each of the three age levels, girls' dreams were significantly longer and included more familiar characters and references to clothing. Girls had more dreams with friendly interactions and were more often the recipients of friendly interactions from others. They reported more dreams with emotions and described their dreams in greater detail, using a wider range of adjectives, particularly those referring to color. These differences were consistent across all three age levels, indicating that sex differences manifest in dreams at the earliest stages of development and remain in place into adulthood. Whether this is due to nature or nurture[...]remains an open question."

And one more, geared more toward this particular thread:

"Unpleasantness in Dreams

One does not, however, have to be in a lower socioeconomic status to have dreams in whichan environmental barrier leads to misfortune or causes frustrtion or concern on the part of the dreamer. In fact, negative or unpleasant dreams are far more common among almost all dreamers than are positive dreams. In our normative tables, Hall and I shoed that more dreams contain aggression than friendliness, failure rather than succes, and misfortune rather than good fortune."

So, don't bad dreams kind of lose a little of their power in your mind too when you find out that they're the most popular way to dream? 8)

Edit: I refuse to accidentially derail this thread so I'll say this: Many years ago, I had a dream where I was being chased down a neverending gothic hallway by a large, very real sounding werewolf in a lucid nightmare. Right at the end of the dream, he jumped, caught me, and sunk his teeth into my left shoulderblade. I woke up with a violent start and get this, his bite was still excruciatingly painful and hurt for a few minutes, and this was skin pain! I'll never forget it.

[Alaskans]

Thats pretty scary, realistic sounds are what creep me out the most. I've had similar experiences with wounds like that.. but not caused by a charactor in dream.

At least in my case I rarely have nightmares. But I know people who listen to agressive or dark music, or are into horror movies and such, that seem to always have nightmares. When I have nightmares, it is usually because I am facing something... often, I am certain it is caused by someone trying to upset or scare me, but as I learned just recently, you can still learn things from those someones in the dream, scary as it might be.

the topic at hand.. pain in dreams..
You probably shouldnt do this, but one time I was experementing and I imagined forming my fingers into a very sharp dagger, I pushed this dagger into my stomach. I felt definite pain that didnt go away for quite some time. That was not the only time. There is a difference between physical and this kind, that is it doesnt seem to be as acute, and can have other elements to it, in my experience anyways.
If you want my opinion.. in energy work, you can feel your other, energy body, some can feel very complex things in one or more of thier energy bodies, or when they move. If one of your other bodies were injured, why wouldnt you feel it on over in your physical body?

I could also certainly beleive that immagination can create pain as well.

[The Cusp]

Finally managed to try to see energy in my dreams the other night. Of course there was nothing to be seen. Objects would dissolve into nothing or turn into mist. Larger objects would change into something smaller.

It wasn't as easy as just pointing and and intending to see energy. I had to say out loud "I want to see energy!" as well. It's not really my style to say stuff like that in dreams, but whatever works.

Hopefully I can keep it up. There may be something energetic to see eventually.