Singing the Sky

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Let me preface this post by reassuring you that I am not always going to be all philosophical. I am simply not that serious of a person. There will be days when I will regale you with my tales of green dog vomit, don’t worry. That said, some interesting things seem to be happening lately.

I read this facinating article in the New York Times about free will and the nature of consciousness, or unconciousness, as it may be. Then I began reading the novel Night of the Jaguar, which is an intelligent mystery that also deals with issues of consciousness.

“The theory of logical types…..Because a set can’t be a member of itself,” said Paz, drunkenly confident. “Say that total knowledge we have about any given subject is a set, set A. And say that the things science or people, the culture, knows is another set, set B. Any number of set A’s will fit into set B, by definition. We know everything possible about how to make flan, about the mass of the particles, about the number of barbers in Cincinati, right? But the set ‘understanding conciousness’ is a set of a different type. It’s not another set A. It’s larger than set B, which is actually made up of all human minds. For the human mind to understand consciousness would be a violation of the theory. That particular A just won’t ever fit into the B, ever.”….”Plus, said Paz, “the mind is not necessarily a product of the brain. You can’t disprove dualism, and if you deny it, it’s just another belief. It’s not science.”

The author, Michael Gruber, is a scientist, who, it appears, also struggles with the nature of science and spirituality. In one scene from the book, one of the characters has a dream. In his dream, he heard his young daughter screaming. He awoke to realize that his daughter was, in fact, screaming from a nightmare. The dreams turn out to be similar, an example of shared dreaming. Frankly, I’ve not been able to find much on the Internet about this phenomenon that is not loaded down with what I consider to be wishy-washy junk.

This book is bringing back memories. Actually, only a month ago, I had a horribly vivid nightmare, from which I woke up hearing Younger Son screaming. I went to him, and although he was too terrified to recount the dream, I find it more than coincidental that at the same instant I woke up from my horrible nightmare, he woke up from his. Neither of us have nightmares all that often, although he has them more often than I do.

In another life, beginning about 20 years ago, I had begun to look into lucid dreaming. I feel as though I opened a portal of sorts during that time. I experienced lucid dreaming (no drugs involved), although mine were quite terrifying and involved being awake during sleep paralysis, which was horrible, like being trapped in your body and not being able to get out. Still, on a couple of occasions, I was able to see what was going on in the room around me, even though my roommate said my eyes were closed. I once “sat up” and looked at my body. That totally freaked me out. That time, I had taken some codeine for some reason. I have never taken it since. I put down on medical forms that I am “allergic” to it.

One reason for the demise of one of my marriages was my tendency to enter my husband’s dreams. Apparently what would happen was that he would be dreaming, and I would start talking in my sleep, with every word cooresponding to his dream until he would wake up, screaming, and yell at me to “get out of his head”. I would be very mystified and confused. I thought he was just plain nuts. He thought I was evil.

Then, with Sage’s dad, it happened again. More than once. Sage’s dad came from a more mystical upbringing, during which his mother regularly made him accompany her to the local bruja to get potions to bring his father back home, which, by the way, never worked. He thought it was absolutely awesome, and didn’t percieve evil intent, as did the other man.

It has only happened with these three individuals. Each time, I apparently was the initiator. (I remember nothing–I never did, and never would, do this on purpose.) I have never experienced anyone “getting into my head” during dreams, nor do I want to, unlike many of the people on the sites I have been to trying (unsuccessfully) to research this oddity.

It does make me consider the nature of our consciousness, although I don’t want to dig too deeply. I want to find truth, but have no interest in experiencing the “paranormal”. I don’t want to open that particular door. Sometimes I think that is why I have avoiding delving too deeply into my faith. I grew up with Christian mystism, and regardless of some might say, the experiences are real. They weren’t always pleasant, and were often scary. Although I have experienced healing that is real. And I have experienced laying on of hands that send dark courses of dark energy through my body. I was a child, so I think it is safe to say I was not analyzing it, hoping for some sort of “experience”.

Golly, I am off on a tangent. Amazing the things one thinks of when one has too much time to sit around and think. Lalala.

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