From:
slider@anashram.com
On Tue, 27 Mar 2018 17:39:23 +0100, Jeremy H. Denisovan <
david.j.worrell@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, I began by talking about *my* experiences. Extremely unusual
for me, too. I only recall having such an experience three times,
all of them in my twenties.
And in my mind, it's not just about 'explaining nightmares'.
There seemed to be *two* related components of these experiences.
First, I'd go to bed feeling better than I'd ever felt.
Like almost supernaturally good. The best description I can give is
that I would have a feeling of having reached an almost unearthly
sense of blissful inner peace (for no clearly discernable reason).
Second, I'd have truly awful nightmares that very same night.
Literally waking up in a cold sweat.
There seemed to be a relationship between those two happenings.
Any theory would need to take both components into account.
It *seemed* like the "blissful peace" was a "trigger" for the
terrible nightmares which were some kind of "release" or "purge".
That's more just what it FELT LIKE to me intuitively than an
intellectual theory. I don't have a good theory about how it
could happen that having intense feelings of peace could "open up"
or "trigger" horrible images from deep in the subconscious. ??
The first time it happened was in 1978, and the last time
was in 1983 or 1984.
Since it occurred only a few times, by the time I fully realized
there seemed to be a distinct relationship between the 'two things',
it had stopped happening. It might have been some sort of vaguely
initiated auto-suggestion - I wouldn't rule that out.
What made the experiences notable is that I wasn't prone to
nightmares. I could count the number of nightmares (recalled)
from my entire life on my fingers, including early childhood.
### - actually, i got all that the first time and was only kinda pushing
you to examine/explain it further (which you've just done btw...) as i
needed a bit more to work with than just that...
and, well... it's impossible to advance a theory as yet, but it 'could'
kinda fit somewhat with what i've been suggesting re (my intuition of) different places in awareness being potentially responsible for content...
for instance; that although, generally speaking, both WILDS & dilds
'appear' to send one off into more or less the same general area of
awareness we then call a dream state, it's also entirely possible that
subtle, yet distinct, differences exist in that state that results in say
more typical content... my generalised/suggested idea of there being left, right & center areas, potentially being far more complex than just that involving several (or even more) possible areas, only one of which
(possibly even several more) accounts for nightmarish content...
what intrigues me some, is your account of it happening 'twice', that both times you were serenely high in some noticeably similar manner at bedtime,
and both times it resulted in noticeably horrible dream-content presumably
also of similar horrible type & content... the implication possibly being
that; the particular state of emotional being you entered into dreaming
via both times, both times resulted in a particular type & quality of
dream; kinda like you went to and from it's polar opposite each time: from serene to scary...
i mean, people go to sleep in 'all kinds' of various moods don't they?
it's not something they deliberately do or ever try to do, it's just
whatever mood they just so happen to be in at the time that they then
carry with them to bed by default... (might have just had a big row with
the missus and go to sleep fuming or whatever, for example heh)
i notice, for example, that whenever i attempt to deliberately WILD, i
maintain what can only really be called a 'determined' no-nonsense
attitude to the whole process until am right into the WILD itself, whereon
it immediately switches to a distinct mood of light-hearted delight/wonder
+ that of intrigue & exploration as i then quite deliberately go-off
exploring (a mood i've kinda cultivated upon entry in order to immediately counter a distinct tendency to be somewhat overwhelmed by the otherwise yikes-type transition involved...)
the point being that, unlike dilds, WILDs are directly the result of a consciously 'deliberate' effort that may or may not account for the
seeming qualitative difference between them (i know you say there isn't
one but i still say there is...) that the dream state arrived in (or at)
via the dild approach, might just subtly differ due to this express 'lack'
of consciously deliberate effort involved; yes it's the same general dream state, but the same general dream state may not all be exactly the same
but may involve a 'range' of available areas 'within' that same general
dream state! (i use dilds & wilds here as 2 extreme + distinct points of
entry only)
so what then perchance leads someone into nightmares? with WILDs there's 2 examples: in the one (via my method) there's never any nightmarish images whatsoever, in the other (via some complicated route am yet to fully understand...) sp is always first involved and then the spooks, demons
(and i maintain: sometimes aliens that abduct ya!) then arise and usually proceed to scare the living crap outta peeps until they either wake up screaming haha, or, they tough it out and remain calm no matter what
assails them (and oh boy does it still assail them!) and then it turns
into a completely lucid & peaceful enough WILD! (there's defo a clue in
there somewhere but what exactly?)
my question to chris there being: what 'mood' were you in before having
those nightmares? did (or had) anything particular happened that day
and/or just before bedtime? people say/suggest that certain foodstuffs
(like cheese) has been known/said to cause nightmares for example...
there's 'something' going on here but i don't know what? there's some correlation i can't quite make out except intuitively? my guess being that
the dream state is vastly more complex/layered/stacked than we might
imagine and/or even allow for... and it's all too... new?
(all this is only a probe btw, am poking at it and poking at it and trying
to make it yield...)
and whatever it is it's not simple!
all we've got to go on is the very few clues we have!
dilds being the 'unconscious' version of probing all this, WILDs are thus
our only hope of ever deliberately unraveling it all by experimenting with different things!
curious :)
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