I'm going to make the conscious effort to bypass the disclaimers and self-justifications that often typify first blog posts, mainly because its awkward and also because I sense my posts are generally going to be very long-winded and without pictures, so maybe this way you'll actually get through the first one. (Damnit, that turned out to be a disclaimer).
What I'm not going to bypass is the explanation of the title. Unfortunately, the internet here is too slow for me to find the dictionary definition of "lucid dreams" that I so desperately need after lamely naming my blog after a topic that I know nearly nothing about, but in this post-modern world I'm just going to try pass it off as it being my personal understanding of and commentary on the concept of lucid dreams that this blog will be extremely loosely based on. The basic idea, for those of you who don't know (pretentious), is tapping into one's ability to become aware of his or her dreams and subsequently have the ability to shape them. I think. I mainly connect to this idea because I think that I'm a damn good candidate for this type of exercise, seeing as I almost always have long, detailed dreams that I remember vividly, and also because I often become aware of the fact that my dream is a dream while within it and repeat it to someone within the dream. Inception stylezzzz. This is almost certainly a reflection of an arrogant habit that I've had from at least grade 6 of telling my dreams to people the morning after as if they really care.
So one of the suggested ways of 'training' oneself to have (?) a lucid dream is to meditate on the action you would like to carry out in dream world as you're falling asleep. I once (yup) tried to do that and found myself at a loss for what my all-powerful Dreamself would ideally do - flying seemed 'over done', going into the past or future seemed dangerous, and hanging out with people I constantly miss just seemed creepy and sad. So I pictured myself (in very mini form, cause I had to fit into my own head) doing the MSN emoticon dance (either you know or you don't). I went to sleep laughing out loud and proceeded to have a (non lucid) dream that involved me walking in the snow in flip flops and ended with me being in a portapotty on someone's lawn as it tipped over. That was me retelling a dream - annoying right?
The only time I have successfully had a lucid dream was this summer when I, for the billionth time, had a reoccurring dream which consists of a much less glorified Dreamself with her mouth suddenly full of chewing gum. I find myself, always in the public sphere, having to embarrassingly remove endless glob after glob of gum out of my mouth, while simultaneously covering up what I'm doing. Research has shown this to be a very common dream, symbolizing anything from onsetting fatal diseases, sleeping with an open mouth, unhealthy relationships, or a problem with self expression. Blah. Anyhow, this summer I became aware that I was dreaming during one of these messy episodes that has led Wakingself to be unable to chew gum, and I directed myself to a mirror. There, I forced Dreamself to open her/my mouth and see that there was no gum inside. In short, it was heroic. And I haven't had that dream since. Boom.
So what's this all about, those of you who are still reading may be wondering. Basically, those experiences helped me have a little bit of an awakening, pardon the pun. I came to realize that dreams aren't necessarily about forcing Dreamself to do things that Wakingself could never do, but rather about developing my consciousness in a way in which I can affect positive change in myself. So consciousness. That's what it's all about. Or so they say. When I run through the last few years of my life I realize that it's kind of been about exploring my consciousness from different perspectives. When I started to 'become religious', so much of that which guided me was the exploration of myself within in God-context. I was trying to develop an awareness of Divinity in the world and the way in which it affected the way in which I saw myself and my obligations in this world. That naturally led to a journey inward, which was about developing a (healthy) self consciousness about my strengths and weaknesses, my fears and limitations, my desires and motivations, and how these slightly-arbitrary-yet-good-sounding-couplets influenced my relationships.
Now that I've successfully mastered those two areas of life (ha), I'm finding myself meeting a previously unexplored sphere of being that demands me to expand my consciousness to define my role in the world. Ambitious, I know, and also so "not me", despite the fact that I'm wearing a Save Darfur shirt right now when I legitimately have no idea what the deal is over there anymore. Or at least what the news is saying about it. And I never really ever did. And that brings us to the place you've all been waiting for...Kathmandu, Nepal.
In short, its truly been wonderful so far. I'm here on a program called Tevel b'Tzedek, which is comprised of one month of orientation and three months of volunteering. For this first month, our special group of 22 Jewish mostly Israelis plus a few North Americans and a Brazilian ranging from the ages of 21-63 (she has 9 grandkids...rock freaking on, Chaya.) are living in an are called Swayambhu (sp?) in a big ass house where we undergo intensive education - Nepali language lessons (embarrassing), politics, culture etc. as well as the development of human rights movements, the effects of globalization on this region, and other such topics that I've never been exposed to in any meaningful way. The group is incredible. I was nervous that me and my beloved fiance (just had to throw him in here...so freaking fun!! he says hi) would find ourselves among a bunch of naive, granola eating, pretentious, take-themselves-too-seriously, renounce the west style folks, but we are part of a dynamic, honest, fun-loving, curious, respectful and down to earth group of people who are each here for their own reasons.
However, it has been this encounter with such an intelligent, involved and active group that has highlighted how little I've been involved in social issues, locally or globally, how completely ignorant I am about politics and current major trends and their implications, and perhaps, how self-involved my journey thus far has been. Not that I think it should have been/will be any other way from here on in. And I also wonder if its even possible. So instead of feeling self-conscious about it in a self deprecating and unproductive manner, I'm going to try to see this as a continuation in what will hopefully be a life long process of expanding my consciousness (exhausted at the thought). I'm excited to learn with and from these people as well as the local Nepalis with which we will be working over the rest of the program (more on that later), and hopefully over the course of this experience I'll come to a greater understanding of my obligation to the world around me and the best way for me to fulfill it.
In other news, its freaking gorgeous here...especially because I was preparing myself for the indescribable nastiness of Delhi. I open my penthouse window to gorgeous mountains and the sounds and smells of Buddhist prayer services, yet I close them because otherwise the monkeys will come in and steal my crap.
With love.
What I'm not going to bypass is the explanation of the title. Unfortunately, the internet here is too slow for me to find the dictionary definition of "lucid dreams" that I so desperately need after lamely naming my blog after a topic that I know nearly nothing about, but in this post-modern world I'm just going to try pass it off as it being my personal understanding of and commentary on the concept of lucid dreams that this blog will be extremely loosely based on. The basic idea, for those of you who don't know (pretentious), is tapping into one's ability to become aware of his or her dreams and subsequently have the ability to shape them. I think. I mainly connect to this idea because I think that I'm a damn good candidate for this type of exercise, seeing as I almost always have long, detailed dreams that I remember vividly, and also because I often become aware of the fact that my dream is a dream while within it and repeat it to someone within the dream. Inception stylezzzz. This is almost certainly a reflection of an arrogant habit that I've had from at least grade 6 of telling my dreams to people the morning after as if they really care.
So one of the suggested ways of 'training' oneself to have (?) a lucid dream is to meditate on the action you would like to carry out in dream world as you're falling asleep. I once (yup) tried to do that and found myself at a loss for what my all-powerful Dreamself would ideally do - flying seemed 'over done', going into the past or future seemed dangerous, and hanging out with people I constantly miss just seemed creepy and sad. So I pictured myself (in very mini form, cause I had to fit into my own head) doing the MSN emoticon dance (either you know or you don't). I went to sleep laughing out loud and proceeded to have a (non lucid) dream that involved me walking in the snow in flip flops and ended with me being in a portapotty on someone's lawn as it tipped over. That was me retelling a dream - annoying right?
The only time I have successfully had a lucid dream was this summer when I, for the billionth time, had a reoccurring dream which consists of a much less glorified Dreamself with her mouth suddenly full of chewing gum. I find myself, always in the public sphere, having to embarrassingly remove endless glob after glob of gum out of my mouth, while simultaneously covering up what I'm doing. Research has shown this to be a very common dream, symbolizing anything from onsetting fatal diseases, sleeping with an open mouth, unhealthy relationships, or a problem with self expression. Blah. Anyhow, this summer I became aware that I was dreaming during one of these messy episodes that has led Wakingself to be unable to chew gum, and I directed myself to a mirror. There, I forced Dreamself to open her/my mouth and see that there was no gum inside. In short, it was heroic. And I haven't had that dream since. Boom.
So what's this all about, those of you who are still reading may be wondering. Basically, those experiences helped me have a little bit of an awakening, pardon the pun. I came to realize that dreams aren't necessarily about forcing Dreamself to do things that Wakingself could never do, but rather about developing my consciousness in a way in which I can affect positive change in myself. So consciousness. That's what it's all about. Or so they say. When I run through the last few years of my life I realize that it's kind of been about exploring my consciousness from different perspectives. When I started to 'become religious', so much of that which guided me was the exploration of myself within in God-context. I was trying to develop an awareness of Divinity in the world and the way in which it affected the way in which I saw myself and my obligations in this world. That naturally led to a journey inward, which was about developing a (healthy) self consciousness about my strengths and weaknesses, my fears and limitations, my desires and motivations, and how these slightly-arbitrary-yet-good-sounding-couplets influenced my relationships.
Now that I've successfully mastered those two areas of life (ha), I'm finding myself meeting a previously unexplored sphere of being that demands me to expand my consciousness to define my role in the world. Ambitious, I know, and also so "not me", despite the fact that I'm wearing a Save Darfur shirt right now when I legitimately have no idea what the deal is over there anymore. Or at least what the news is saying about it. And I never really ever did. And that brings us to the place you've all been waiting for...Kathmandu, Nepal.
In short, its truly been wonderful so far. I'm here on a program called Tevel b'Tzedek, which is comprised of one month of orientation and three months of volunteering. For this first month, our special group of 22 Jewish mostly Israelis plus a few North Americans and a Brazilian ranging from the ages of 21-63 (she has 9 grandkids...rock freaking on, Chaya.) are living in an are called Swayambhu (sp?) in a big ass house where we undergo intensive education - Nepali language lessons (embarrassing), politics, culture etc. as well as the development of human rights movements, the effects of globalization on this region, and other such topics that I've never been exposed to in any meaningful way. The group is incredible. I was nervous that me and my beloved fiance (just had to throw him in here...so freaking fun!! he says hi) would find ourselves among a bunch of naive, granola eating, pretentious, take-themselves-too-seriously, renounce the west style folks, but we are part of a dynamic, honest, fun-loving, curious, respectful and down to earth group of people who are each here for their own reasons.
However, it has been this encounter with such an intelligent, involved and active group that has highlighted how little I've been involved in social issues, locally or globally, how completely ignorant I am about politics and current major trends and their implications, and perhaps, how self-involved my journey thus far has been. Not that I think it should have been/will be any other way from here on in. And I also wonder if its even possible. So instead of feeling self-conscious about it in a self deprecating and unproductive manner, I'm going to try to see this as a continuation in what will hopefully be a life long process of expanding my consciousness (exhausted at the thought). I'm excited to learn with and from these people as well as the local Nepalis with which we will be working over the rest of the program (more on that later), and hopefully over the course of this experience I'll come to a greater understanding of my obligation to the world around me and the best way for me to fulfill it.
In other news, its freaking gorgeous here...especially because I was preparing myself for the indescribable nastiness of Delhi. I open my penthouse window to gorgeous mountains and the sounds and smells of Buddhist prayer services, yet I close them because otherwise the monkeys will come in and steal my crap.
With love.
Officially addicted.
השבמחקEnjoy your experience and keep us posted!! Sounds amazing so far!