A Kind Of Ideological Catalyst

I had been planning to post a couple of links to interviews featuring John Lash and Paul Levy today, but something amusing occurred, which will end up being the subject of this post.  I was reading Clif High's latest post at HalfPastHuman and I couldn't help but think, "Wow, that's rather cryptic, Clif," when I clicked on the link in the upper left part of his post.  That link took me to a talk called "The Definitive UFO Tape," by one of the people whom I've admired most in recent years, the late Terence McKenna.  After listening to the talk, I believe I understand why Clif put it there.  Both McKenna and Joseph Campbell have influenced my spiritual path greatly.  Both were exceedingly brilliant men.  It's a very interesting talk, as is the one that auto-plays after it.

I had not heard this talk before, nor had I ever seen the picture used for the duration of the video, which is where it gets weird for me.  If I had come across the video in the past, based on the title, I probably would have opted to choose another McKenna talk, however, the talk / lecture presents the subject matter in a way that I had never comprehended before.  All I'll say is it has to do with the self, individually and collectively.  It reminded me of my Year Zero post a couple of months ago, where I asked whether we are all running from something inside of ourselves, individually and collectively, that is preventing us from evolving.  I wondered if we, as a race, are refusing to face or are blind to some greater truth.  Suffice to say, it is a powerful talk filled with insights.

But that's not the amusing part.  This morning, just before I woke up, I was dreaming and conscious of the dream.  I was on a hillside, at night, with two other people who were friends, but not from this life.  I often dream of strangers, at least strangers to this physical incarnation.  I knew I was close these two people somehow, but I don't remember who they were.  We were waiting for something, watching the sky.  They were both looking off in one direction.  As I stood on the slope of the hill, I turned around and looked up into the sky behind us.  "Look!" I exclaimed, as I pointed to a single glowing cross moving across the sky away from us.  I turned to my friends to see if they were looking, and when I turned around to look at the cross, the shape was a glowing cylinder with rings circling the outside.  It looked like a barrel or pipe.  Both the cross and the barrel glowed with a light orange hue.

The cross image confounded me.  Why am I seeing that shape in the sky?  Is it some echo from an earlier system of beliefs?  I questioned myself in the dream as I stood upon the hill.  I spent a moment wondering if it was supposed to mean something, because I felt it was out of the context of my dream.  I awoke moments later, still wrestling with what I saw.  I often dream of things in the sky, flying and stationary, but I don't remember seeing glowing objects in the night sky in a dream any time recently.  I continued thinking about the dream during the day, until I came across the video.  From my own dream analysis over the years, when I see objects appearing in the sky, they usually represent new ideas ready to be birthed.  At least that's how I've come to interpret them.  They don't represent the ideas themselves, they're just sort of 'coming soon' signs.

I realize I used the word amusing earlier, but the more I've looked at the picture used in the YouTube video (about which the uploader says he doesn't know the artist - in the comments), the more generally freaked out I am at the measure of coincidence.  It sends a fresh set of goosebumps across my body when I consider what in fact McKenna is talking about in the video, which is deep, heavy and resonates with me greatly.  To have arrived at this point via a link in one of Clif High's posts (another person whom I admire) just makes me laugh.  As I have said many times here, Universe can be as playful as a kitten when you are in the moment and connected.  Whether you arrive at a moment like that by chance or with focused attention, it doesn't matter.  The resonance afterward is the same, as you enjoy the aftertaste of synchronicity.

~ Namaste ~

New Experience - A Dream Burst

About a week ago, I had a particular dream experience stands out as virtually unique on a few different levels, enough that I thought it was worth sharing here.  I had been using a technique for lucid dreaming that a friend came across in Malcolm Godwin's book, "The Lucid Dreamer" and shared with me a couple of weeks ago.  The technique involves affirmations before falling asleep whereby one attempts to creates queues within the physical world that activate lucidity within the dreamworld.  Around the same time, I also began a daily ritual of Pranayama Breathing in an attempt to have another kundalini experience.  I began both of the techniques in order to reconnect with the expansive cosmic energy forces that dominated my physical world for an extended period a little over a year ago.  I have been seeking answers and direction for my life for some time, and have become somewhat frustrated that no apparent solutions have come forth.  Yet last week, I had a peculiar experience that I've come to describe as a "Dream Burst."  Dream Burst is the best way that I can describe the experience.

I doubt that the pranayama breathing or the lucid dreaming techniques had anything to do with the "Dream Burst," since I had only been doing both for two days at that point and have not had any type of similar experience in the seven or so days since.  After it happened, I was fumbling for the notebook that I keep close to my bed, repeating the term "Dream Burst" over and over so that I wouldn't forget the description of this expansive experience that came to me within the dream.  This occurred in the early afternoon while I had taken a short nap.  I was asleep for maybe forty-five minutes in total, and the "Dream Burst" lasted approximately four or five minutes in total at the very end of the nap.  I had begun to dream, and in my dream I was seated at a table, actually more like a bar, within a residence of some kind that appeared to be on a tropical island.

It was a beautiful tropical home, like a well-thatched hut of some kind that had windows but no glass panes.  The window areas had door-like hatches that were open and secured to the ceiling of the hut.  There was also an open door toward the end of the bar beyond which I could see palm trees.  I remember feeling the tropical breezes as I sat at on a chair at the bar with several pieces of paper in front of me and a pen or pencil in my hand.  I was writing, attempting to sort out some kind of list.  As I sat and wrote, I realized that I had become lucid within the dream and immediately began to try and determine what it was that I was writing.  Just then, as I found myself aware and attempted to focus on what was on the papers scattered in front of me, something unseen spoke to me within my mind, saying, "You are trying to remember something in your life right now.  What you are trying to remember is what it's like to be formless.  It feels like this - Remember?"

Just then, my entire energy field lit up as if I was a "sparkler," which is what we in the US call a hand-held child's firework that is often seen on Independence Day.  It was intense and I vibrated wildly.  The feeling was similar to the best astral travel experience that I could recall, yet quite different.  My entire energy field felt spherical, and I found myself floating in the air above the chair and bar, completely enveloped in pure bliss.  I didn't want it to stop.  I immediately started saying, "I surrender!  I surrender!" as I was floating gently upward very slowly.  Although it brought to mind feelings similar to some excellent astral travel / obe experiences of the past, this was something entirely new for me.  I can't recall ever having something unseen in a dream speak to me within my dreaming mind.  It felt as if I had been shot out of a slow motion flare gun, and just like a flare, I felt as if I was glowing and drifting over the landscape.  I became aware of my etheric or energy body, and it felt as if my arms and legs were stretched out wide and I was in a kind of blissful state of suspended animation.

I tried desperately to gauge and quantify the experience.  Since I couldn't recall ever having something speak to me within my mind during a dream, I tried to focus on the identity of what it was that had spoken to me.  Usually it's people or animal forms of some kind.  Once I was "lit up," I didn't sense any type of entity or energy form near me.  All I wanted to do was to perpetuate the experience and try to use the state to transit into another realm.  I felt like that was possible, yet as much as I tried, I couldn't seem to direct myself anywhere.  I just felt like a bubble floating on a breeze.  The next thing that I noticed was that I could still feel myself sitting at the bar, and the identification with the two body positions - floating bubble and seated on a chair - seemed to go back and forth in milliseconds, as if I was experiencing bi-location simultaneously.  I had experienced similar bi-location events in dreams before, but not like this.  As awareness of those two states shifted back and forth quickly, I began to experience a third state; tri-location.  To my amazement, the third state of awareness was of being in my bed in the physical world, in a completely different position (lying on my side with both arms near my chest).  As I alternated between the awareness of the three different positions or states, I realized that I was awake in my bed.
 
I kept my eyes closed and tried with great effort to focus myself entirely on the blissful sphere state, but to no avail.  The two dream states faded very slowly, with the buzzing and vibrating of the blissful state slowly lowering in intensity as I became more and more aware of the singular state of lying in my physical bed.  Although I was initially disappointed that I couldn't seem to maintain either the tri-location or shift awareness completely into the blissful floating bubble, I was impressed.  The intensity was unlike anything I had experienced in the dream state in many years, if ever.  I didn't move my physical body for several minutes, attempting to shift myself back into the dream, but it didn't work.  When I finally got up, I thanked my higher self, source energy and whatever energy that had initiated the experience within my dream, as I had no baring on who or what that energy form was that had spoken to me.  About an hour after the experience, I happened to be walking into my bedroom when I saw purple-blue orbs spiraling around the perimeter of my room near the ceiling.  They lasted for about three or four seconds.  Although I do see orbs and flashing blue-white lights from time to time, these orbs were different and that was another first for me.  I laughed and thanked them, whatever they were or represented, for the little show they provided, and welcomed them to return any time they wished.

It's been about a week now since this took place.  I have continued with the pranayama breathing twice a day, and I've used the lucid dreaming technique every time before entering sleep, but have had no experience even remotely similar since that time.  As I face a continually mounting set of physical life survival problems, it perplexes me that I can't seem to find opportunities or manifest changes that will avert what appears to be my upcoming loss of a residence and financial solvency.  "Why this, then?"  I have wondered for the past week.  "Why are there no answers and no clear path for me at this time?"  I still feel that I'm in some kind of spiritual holding pattern, which has been going on for the past eighteen months.  I feel as though I have a lot to give, a lot to contribute, and although I have been focusing on the little things that I am able to do in my life and living from a heart-centered place, helping people when and where I can, I still feel somewhat adrift in a silent sea, waiting for strong sailing winds to blow and take me to my next destination.  I suppose it's somewhat ironic, and in the end I have to do what I have been doing, which is surrendering to what is, despite my efforts to change my situation.

My hope is that somewhere down the line in the future this experience is given perspective, or it returns within a greater context of some kind, so that I can use it to help others and gain further useful insights.  As of today, this remains the most intense experience since my cosmic initiation period over a year ago, however short and fleeting as this Dream Burst was.  Formlessness is great, no doubt about it.  And if said formlessness means being within a bubble of pure bliss, I'm all for it, but unless it's something that I can learn to activate at will, my physical efforts of survival seem to be way too daunting to overcome at this time.  Within my efforts to rationalize the Dream Burst, my thoughts turn to where we are within the Mayan Dreamspell calendar, and I find myself wondering if this state of being is some kind of preview of gifts that are soon to be realized.  My left-brain obviously thinks that's pretty silly, and that I'm hoping against hope, but in the end, I have to think that the sum-total of my spiritual experiences are leading to something, and that "something," whatever it is, has to do with my personal growth, ascension and evolution.  When I read articles such as this one from Szuson Wong, which was recently posted on various websites and blogs over the past week, it gives me hope - hope that maybe we really are on the verge of some exciting events whereby those of us who are attuned to higher frequencies do find ourselves transforming into higher dimensions of reality.

Peace ; )

New Spiritual Wind

Every so-many years or so, I receive what I call a New Spiritual Wind, which is like a vaporous awareness that sweeps over my being.  I can't pinpoint anything in terms of timing or any kind of action that I've taken in the physical world that would trigger such an event, although such may exist beyond my waking awareness.  To best describe the feeling, it's as though some kind of "knowing" has been activated deep within my being, yet said knowing is incomplete at the time of its arrival.  For example, I will notice a shift in my awareness and during such time, words and images will begin to (often flood) my mind, compelling me to seek out what something inside of me is trying to articulate.  Often the results are immediate and I am off reading or researching about a particular topic.  Sometimes these searches and the subsequent reading can take weeks or months.

What is interesting about this particular event at this time is its arrival on November 11th.  Although I am aware of the significance of the eleven/eleven date in terms of its acknowledgment in some circles as power numbers, that's not what is interesting to me at this time.  What is interesting is that I came across some old journals and in doing so, noticed that that the arrivals of the last two "spiritual winds" for me were on November 10th and 12th in previous years.  Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but having found those journals over this past summer and having made a mental note of the times, the fact that I've awoken on this 11:11 day with a whole new set of direction to pursue in my quest to understand more about myself is in itself interesting to me.  As far as the date itself is concerned, it's purely coincidence from my point of view, however, I have noticed that November seems to be a good month for me in terms of consciousness expansion.

The essence of what I received this time came about via a dream hangover, which is a self explanatory term I use for myself when I feel a certain pull associated with the information that I'm receiving that tends to (in my mind) point to my dreaming reality (while sleeping).  The message that I received this time was roughly the following... "Return.  We're here.  Raise your vibration.  Remember."  I've just ordered several books and some cds based on what I found earlier today online.  We'll see where this goes.