Any thoughts on consciousness quality and dreams

[lemmiwinks]

Hi guys and gals,

I was pondering if there is any correlation between high quality consciousness, low quality consciousness and dreams?

From some casual personal and ongoing research, I am finding that high quality consciousness individuals seem to dream less, whilst lower quality consciousness individuals have more dreams, and more arbitrary ones at that?

Here are my thoughts...

High quality consciousness individuals:

- Dream less (or don't remember any of the arbitrary ones)
- Dream less arbitrary dreams
- Dream when something important to their personal development arises e.g. "dream educational classes"
- Dream more dreams which can be interpreted easily

Low quality consciousness individuals:

- Dream more
- Dream more arbitrary dreams
- Dreams are less easily interpreted

Further conclusions:

- Lower quality consciousness individuals dream more arbitrary dreams because their consciousness is high entropy, thus more random and arbitrary dreams arise into awareness i.e. dreams that don't really matter about anything?

- Lower quality consciousness individuals dream more because they have more fear to overcome, and their awareness expresses this in dream form?

- Higher quality consciousness individuals dream less arbitrary dreams because their (higher powered) sub-conscious can organize arbitrary dreams and put them into the recycle bin, thus they are not remembered, and the more meaningful personal growth dreams are stored in the hard drive to work on later?

- Higher quality consciousness individuals dream less because many fears have been overcome, thus fewer fears are expressed in dream form?

Let me add, I'm not implying people who dream loads are all lower quality consciousness individuals, or are in any way lower than anyone else, because I don't have the authority/wisdom to state this. Personally I dream loads, maybe 4-5 per night, most of which are random arbitrary and silly ones. I don't consider myself high quality consciousness by a long shot, I still have a long way to go. Recently, I have been stuck in a negative rut due to circumstances, and my dream level has rocketed, particularly bad dreams and arbitrary dreams, in fact I can't remember the last time I had a nice one??!! I suppose this reflects a lot of fear, and a high entropy consciousness. I see reading the forums that many people here report personal development type dreams, which is a good sign!

I dunno, any thoughts on this guys/gals?

If Robert Bruce is reading this, let me know your dream recall ratio, whether your dreams are arbitrary, or if they are the opposite and you only dream when it is required. Then this data can go into the casual personal research bank!!

Thanks all,

Kind Regards,

Lemmiwinks 8)

[sleeper]

does this theory apply to your life and experiences, lemmiwinks?

maybe you could make a project out of this and do a long term log tracking your consciousness/dream quality.

[ButterflyWoman]

Hmmm. Interesting.

When I was clueless and totally unaware of pretty much everything (other than the odd moments of mystical contact with the Divine, which I've experienced all my life), I used to have excruciatingly vivid dreams, many of them full on nightmares. I can recall dreams from when I was very, very young, that's how vivid and "real" my dreams seemed to me.

These days, I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do, they're generally much less vivid. Lately, I've been having dreams that are clearly telling me something, communicative dreams, and I remember those, but that's about it.

Is it coincidence? Does it mean anything at all? I have no idea. It is interesting, though, now that I think about it.

[Beekeeper]

I think there is something in your reasoning. The way I see it, if you're absorbed in the day to day and you have little time for introspection, then the dreams will deal with the things that have remained unexpressed in the unconscious. It becomes a little more complicated, however, in that if your absorption in physical life leaves you exhausted you may sleep heavily and not recall a lot of that dreaming. Alternately, if you fixate on your daily concerns you may find the quality of your sleep is compromised and you'll sleep lightly, wake often and remember dreams.

Personally, I find that quality lucid dreams are only really possible for me if I remain conscious throughout the day, if I focus on keeping my mind in the here and now and relatively still and I focus on inhabiting my body and sensing as much as I can physically.

[CFTraveler]

From some casual personal and ongoing research, I am finding that high quality consciousness individuals seem to dream less, whilst lower quality consciousness individuals have more dreams, and more arbitrary ones at that? I can't tell you how much I disagree with this post.
First of all, we all dream all the time, whether we remember or not.
No dreams are arbitrary- they are all some sort of process- if you are aware of what your process you realize more what the process is and they make more sense to you. So what makes the consciousness 'coherent' is not the content of the dream, but the sense it makes to the dreamer.
Dream recall is something that people study and learn to achieve- so I don't see how you can say that people with 'low consciousness' recall more.
Most of the highest-consciousness people I have ever met have good dream recall and understand what their dreams are about. But they didn't dream 'less' or recalled 'less' either.
I agree with the process or 'subsets' or premises, but not the conclusions. They seem contradictory or arbitrary.
Finally, how do you qualify consciousness? What makes a person 'high consciousness' and 'low consciousness'?

[lemmiwinks]

Hey guys and gals,

Thanks for the replies.

Beekeeper: Alternately, if you fixate on your daily concerns you may find the quality of your sleep is compromised and you'll sleep lightly, wake often and remember dreams.

I think this could be why I recall so many dreams. I tend to wake a lot throughout the night, and have a lot of stuff i.e. work and relationship issues on the plate at the moment, which could account for the fixation upon daily concerns and light sleeping. I guess there are so many variables that affect dreams and dream recall it's hard to pin down factors which increase and decrease dreaming and recall. Thanks for the reply Beekeeper!

CaterpillarWoman: Lately, I've been having dreams that are clearly telling me something, communicative dreams, and I remember those, but that's about it.

I know what you mean. It really bugs me when I have a communicative dream, wake up and can't remember what was being communicated. But the sense that someone/thing was trying to convey a message remains. Obviously your dream recall on these dream types is pretty good, so at least you have something to work on, keep it up! Thanks for the reply CaterpillarWoman!

Sleeper: does this theory apply to your life and experiences, lemmiwinks? maybe you could make a project out of this and do a long term log tracking your consciousness/dream quality.

Yes I guess this does apply to my life and experiences. This post was intended to see if anyone else is making the same conscious quality and dreaming connection, and I have got some interesting and mixed replies which is good. From what I understand, consciousness can progress to a more organized state (increase quality), or regress to a less organized (decrease quality) state, and fluctuates with changes in variables such as emotions, motivation and ego. At present, my quality has taken a slight regression, and it's up to me to climb back out of this rut. One of my original observations was that I am currently dreaming "arbitrary" and unpleasant dreams, I am assuming that this is connected to my current level of consciousness quality.

Tracking dreams is definitely a good idea sleeper. Part of my research (it's not really research, more like casual observations. "Research" just sounds cool!) has been recording dreams and dream types. I use a little piece of software called "Smart Diary Suite". It's basically a diary and organizer, which I use to log my dreams. The cool thing about this software is that you can input "life factors" relating to "mind, body and matter" (includes factors such as mood, fatigue, weight etc) and then compare these to dream factors (fun, amusing, neutral, strange, nightmare). Using this data, the suite draws up graphs and charts which track changes and trends. Its pretty nifty, I'll add the link if anyone's interested, there's a free version available, but doesn't have as many functions as the full version. Thanks for the reply sleeper!

http://www.sdiary.com/

CFTraveler: how do you qualify consciousness? What makes a person 'high consciousness' and 'low consciousness'?

This is the way I see it, these are a few examples of physical characteristics and traits, but hopefully you'll get my drift:

Persons with a higher quality consciousness display characteristics such as:

- Good intent
- Little ego
- Compassionate
- Selfless
- Focused on giving (without expecting stuff in return), as opposed to focusing on taking
- Helping others (without expecting help in return)

Persons with a lower quality consciousness display characteristics such as:

- Bad intent
- Big ego
- Selfishness
- being pre-judgmental
- Over focusing on what other people think
- Under focusing on how their actions make others feel

CFTraveler: No dreams are arbitrary- they are all some sort of process- if you are aware of what your process you realize more what the process is and they make more sense to you. So what makes the consciousness 'coherent' is not the content of the dream, but the sense it makes to the dreamer.

It's definitely an issue I have trying to decipher my dreams. When I say "arbitrary" I mean dreams that just don't seem to make sense. Perhaps you are right and all dreams do have a meaning, and the problem lies in the deciphering of what seems to be an arbitrary dream into information that means something to the dreamer.

CFTraveler: Dream recall is something that people study and learn to achieve- so I don't see how you can say that people with 'low consciousness' recall more.

I agree, dream recall is something which can be cultivated. My rationale was that people with a higher degree of consciousness quality don't dream as much, because they have a better ability to organize their consciousness and the way they spend their energy i.e. not wasting energy on arbitrary dreams. Let me give an example:

Say, Bob, a low quality consciousness person overhears someone saying bad stuff about him. Bob gets furious and his thoughts and ego go crazy (stuff like anger, plotting revenge, and what he's going to say to so and so when he sees him next etc etc). That night Bob is still furious, and goes to bed fuming. His dreams are plagued by acts of revenge on this other person, generally not very nice dreams! So basically, he carries his negative emotions over to his dream state, whereby these dreams unfold (arbitrary or not), but his consciousness does not hold the capacity to organize this dream into something which hold no personal value to him, and does not dispense of it.

On the other hand, Dave is a high quality consciousness person, and he too hears someone saying bad stuff about him. Because Dave reflects higher quality consciousness attributes, he brushes off the negative remarks, doesn't take them personally, goes to bed and doesn't dream about plotting revenge upon so and so. Maybe Dave will dream about the negative remarks so and so said, however, his (more) organized consciousness brushes aside these dreams as they hold no real value to him, therefore he wakes up and doesn't recall dreaming about so and so saying those nasty things!

As I said, my research is actually only casual observations. I heard Bob Monroe say he didn't dream much on a Coast to Coast interview, Thomas Campbell said much the same thing on his forum (he stated that he didn't dream much (or recall dreams), unless it was something of importance), and there's a few people whom I know who have stated the same thing, and I consider these fairly high quality consciousness individuals. So, that's more or less what my research is based on, oh and myself of course! So there's not much data to form a solid conclusion, I guess it differs form individual to individual. Thanks for the reply CFTraveler!

Thanks for the input everyone, sorry for the essay length reply!

Kind regards,

Lemmiwinks 8)

[Jananz]

Dreams are not natures way of processing fear.
Our fears can arise in dreams if we are repressing them (habits, addictions, denial)...
Just as our greatest wounds are our best teachers, so too are our greatest fears.
We can easily palpate the "level" of consciousness that a dream is on by the quality, subject matter...the ambiance, alchemical chemistry, vibrational effect of a dream. Depending on how we live our daily life...to entropically diminish our vitality and well-being or to synergistically increase our vitality and well-being...this determines the "quality" of the dreams coming through. Our dreamlife is one and the same as our spiritual, alchemical and Muse life. In fact it is usually the most potent and real component of these.

If you want to do an experiment of low conscious, incoherent dreaming...then just go eat a pizza or a bunch of cheap cheese and alcohol. Then you can see how unrefined consciousness becomes when we gross out our body. Conversely if you want to increase the vibration and spiritual power of your dreaming, then go on a fast, take neurotropic herbs, eat a raw diet and get heaps of change, novelty and adventure.

[John]

I would like to say that, in my view, a highly conscious person would be more aware of what is going on around them than a person with less awareness.

This would also put the higher conscious person in greater touch with their dream world and its impact on the so called conscious life.

Those who are driven or led to have a greater, more expanded, sensitivity to their surroundings are more connected to unseen realities. This does not make them any more esteemed in the views of our spirit self, they are just more widely focused.

There is a purpose for all ways of being. The wiser you become, in my view, the more you can appreciate yourself and others. In the end you may find that there is but one conscious awareness that lovingly embraces All That Is.

John

[CFTraveler]

I would like to say that, in my view, a highly conscious person would be more aware of what is going on around them than a person with less awareness.

This would also put the higher conscious person in greater touch with their dream world and its impact on the so called conscious life.

Those who are driven or led to have a greater, more expanded, sensitivity to their surroundings are more connected to unseen realities. This does not make them any more esteemed in the views of our spirit self, they are just more widely focused.

There is a purpose for all ways of being. The wiser you become, in my view, the more you can appreciate yourself and others. In the end you may find that there is but one conscious awareness that lovingly embraces All That Is.

John That's what I was trying to say, John. You said it better than I ever could.

[sleeper]

well, on this forum there is a strong grasp of dreaming. but all across the web and bookstores, there is widespread misunderstanding and disagreement about this topic.

There is much elitism in the spiritual movement and according to the many works that have been written, dreams may be either the least important or the most important thing we can do at night. To some, particularly native peoples, dreams are something to be studied vigorously because they reveal hidden things about ourselves and our universe, and they are a doorway to the greater reality....(more about this in a minute). other authors claim that dreams are much less important; some people claim that dreams are inventions of the passions, the imaginings of a primitive and illogical mind. Enlightened people claim to never dream at all. Children claim to traverse their entire world and beyond during their dreams. most adults rarely dream.

people with such diverse experiences are bound to have differing ideas about dreams.

[lemmiwinks]

Wise words sleeper, I agree with you.

John also brought up a valid point, stating:



This would also put the higher conscious person in greater touch with their dream world and its impact on the so called conscious life.

I guess there is so much variation between individuals pertaining to their dreams and their state of consciousness quality, and all the data is subjective!!!

I would like to learn more about dreams, and how to apply them (meanings, guidance, intuitional knowledge) to practical life.

Thanks all,

Lemmiwinks :D

Postlude to my original post:

My original post was a set of observations and conclusions derived from these. I don't hold belief to these conclusions, because I have insufficient data to form a solid conclusion. I hope I didn't offend anyone using the terms higher and lower states of consciousness. A better term which I should have used would be "developed" i.e. someone with a "more developed quality of consciousness" as opposed to "someone with a higher quality of consciousness" e.g. Adolf Hitler would have had a less developed quality of consciousness whereas, say, Mahatma Ghandi would have had a more developed quality of consciousness, if ya get my drift. I hope I didn't come across as condescending.
Nevertheless, it's a cool discussion and the replies have been mixed and interesting, giving me (and hopefully everyone else) some tasty brainfood to get the neural nashers round... mmm...