A Global Nightmare: The Gulf Oil Spill of April 20, 2010

9.5.10

Cynthia

How we feel and how we think about world events shapes our world view, which it turn shapes the choices that we make that affect not only ourselves but all other beings on Earth in one way or another.  If our world view is inaccurate, we make decisions that are destructive and abusive not only toward our environment and others, but toward ourselves.  The more that our world view takes into account the perspectives of those affected by our decisions, the more likely it is that our decisions will support the common good.  The inverse is also true: the less that our world view takes into account the perspectives of those affected by our decisions, the more likely it is that our decisions will destroy others and ourselves.  Personal and world catastrophes are caused by a lack of awareness of the consequences of our actions.  This has been true throughout history, as Jared Diamond makes clear in Collapse.  It will destroy our own civilization if we do not listen to the past and listen to the increasingly dire wake-up calls that confront humanity.

Many people in the world right now feel like the subject of this interview does:  They are watching the unfolding of a global ecological nightmare, in the form of the Gulf Oil Spill, with horror.  They are both frightened and depressed.  They feel helpless and angry.  They grieve for all the needless lives of sea creatures and the unfolding of terrible destruction to ecosystems in the Ocean.  They know that even if this particular ocean oil leak is quickly plugged that man’s technology is increasingly unleashing natural forces that he cannot control. Depending on the stage of their grief, they deny the seriousness of the situation, stay depressed and helpless, strike out in rage, or reach some accommodation with an unacceptable daily status quo.  What can be done?

The following preferences reflect the disaster from multiple perspectives within one person.  If you created your own account and used it to create a Dream Sociogram to give voice to the players who are participants in your world dream, the results would be uniquely yours.  However, Cynthia’s voice represents many others.  You will find a great deal in her account that you can relate to and appreciate.  Like many people, she has a personal connection to this unfolding nightmare. She has been leading trips to Bimini in the Bahamas to swim with wild dolphins for eleven years and has a deep love and respect for the ocean and its inhabitants.  It is a voice that needs to be heard.  It gives voice to those who can not speak, but can only live and die.

Integral Deep Listening is inherently therapeutic, in that by respecting, recognizing, listening to, and accepting multiple self-created perspectives we evolve beyond our prerational feelings and beliefs about our personal and shared dramas and nightmares.   It does so in part by providing a rational and objective method of evaluation that is duplicatable and subject to peer review.  Identification with personifications of our conflicting needs and wants, as well as our unrecognized potentials, whether from nightmares, waking life issues, or waking life nightmares, such as the gulf oil spill, allow us the ability to access transpersonal world views that transcend and include multiple legitimate perspectives that we previously ignored or disowned.  The world needs such transpersonal perspectives now, and the ability of IDL to generate them in an authentic way is what makes it integral.

Our hope is that this Dream Sociomatrix and Sociogram will help you process through your own thoughts and feelings about what we are doing to our planet and steer you toward a stance or perspective will not be reactive, dismissive, or partial, but one that will heal, balance, and transform your life.

Waking Life Dream Narrative

Oil Platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 20th of April, 2010. PB Officials are visiting, celebrating that there will soon be a highly productive oil well below Deep Water Horizon.  Then whoosh, boom, running.  Chaos.  BP officials leaving platform first.  Some people are trying to activate the main blowout preventer, but in vain. The platform is already on fire.  Workers get into life boats.  Some fall into the sea and are cooked by the heat.  Oil is pouring out, under great pressure.  Nothing can be done to stop the leak.  All the measures taken are ineffective.  A huge carpet of oil that you can see from space forms on the sea.  No one knows how much oil is floating and drifting of lying on the bottom of the Gulf.  Obama says BP will pay for it but BP is not equipped to deal with the catastrophe.  The Coast Guard and other arms of government intervene.  They inject dispersants that make people feel they are successful but the chemicals are even more toxic than the oil.  Uncontainable, it is soon taken up by the loop current that meets the Gulf Stream, sweeping along the Florida coastline, Cuba, and on up the Eastern seaboard.  Most of the fish larvae in the affected areas die.  It will take decades for sea life to recover from the spill.  Some never do.  Some go extinct.  Every creature that lives on fish – dolphins, sharks, birds – have a hard time.

My associations to this waking life dream are…

Every time you go swimming in those areas you have will have tar on your body.  The ocean washes tar balls ashore for decades.  It will enter history as the greatest oil spill of mankind.  It leads to fierce fights between conservatives and environmentalists.  They all wish they had put more energy, resources, and money into alternative energy because they realize that time is running out for the environment. Do the banks of the Bahamas remain dolphin grounds and a shark nursery because the Gulf current pushes it past?  Or does everything get killed?  In August will there be no dolphins to swim with, with the creatures dead and the reefs suffocated under oil?  The Gulf Stream will transport the oil even down to Africa.  It will pollute all the oceans of the world because they are all connected through the deep water basins.  It is something that is happening to mankind, not just to one country or to one ocean.  Is it a changing point for energy?

Three fundamental life issues

How to not lose hope for mankind and become a total cynic.

Not losing hope for my own life.  Why get up in the morning?  Why worry about smoking or not in the face of catastrophes like this? Depression.  “Why bother?  Life is almost over anyway.

• Existential fear.  Hardly being able to pay bills now.  How bad will things get?   Should I go to Miami to help clean up the coast?  Should I go for a last swim with the dolphins before the oil kills them all?

Predictions:

This life dream has a cast of characters.  One of them will be most preferring, another most rejecting.  One will be most preferred by the other characters in the group, one will be most rejected.  There will be most preferred and most rejected actions and feelings if there are multiple actions and feelings stated in the dream narrative and included in the constructed dream sociomatrix.  If this was your dream, what would be your predictions?  Here are Cynthia’s. Write down your best guess of the preferences of this life nightmare group.  At the end you will get to see how accurate you and Cynthia were.

Most preferring: Gulf Stream

Most rejecting: BP

Most preferred character: Ocean Life

Most rejected character: BP

Most preferred action: Clean up

Most rejected action: pollution

Most preferred feeling: ?

Most rejected feeling: appalled; in shock

Dream Sociomatrix Commentary

A Dream Sociomatrix is a grid for collecting seven degrees of preference and one preference-transcending worldview, as these are expressed by a group of self-aspects, both individually and collectively.  These self-aspects may be characters in a dream, a waking life issue, or in a world event.  From the perspective of spirit, all of these are equally both real and dreamlike.  Detailed information about creating Dream Sociomatrices can be found here and here.

“The reason I like, like (a lot, love, dislike, dislike a lot, hate, don’t care about, or am accepting toward) (dream element) is…”  “What I liked/disliked most about being in this dream is…”

Dream Self: I like myself because I’m compassionate.  I dislike the drilling platform. I love the ocean.  I am ambivalent toward the workers.  I dislike BP.  I dislike the blowout. I don’t care about the subsequent fire.   I don’t care about the evacuation or the following deaths.  Sometimes I dislike them.  It’s difficult.  Right now I don’t care.  I don’t know those people.  Those losses are really peanuts compared to who and what else will die, plus they get paid to take such risks. They know what they’re doing; it’s their responsibility.  I’m neutral toward the oil.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  It should just stay where it was.  The Gulf of Mexico is beautiful!  I like it a lot!  Also the Gulf Stream; it brings warmth and fresh water and keeps everything going.  I hate that they can’t stop the leak.  It’s almost unbearable to know that this is going to be going on for months and it could be a huge amount of oil that leaks.  I hate that the oil is spreading and that it is killing the ocean’s creatures.  I hate that it’s a catastrophe. We don’t need any more catastrophes.  Yet I am still ambivalent.  Maybe this horror will bring a change and wake everyone up, like Chernobyl.  Maybe it will make clear that we have to live with sustainable energies.  Perhaps the catastrophe will make for less war with those countries that have oil.  I love the idea of cleaning it all up but not what they are actually doing to clean it up now.  The dispersant chemicals they are using actually makes it worse for the ocean life.  I am ambivalent about being appalled and in shock.  People shouldn’t have to spend their time cleaning birds and sand and dealing with this.

What I like most about being in this experience is that I AM alive to experience it.

What I dislike most about being in this experience is the same: that I have to experience something like this while I am alive.

Platform: Who’s Cynthia?  I have no feelings.  The blowout destroys me. I don’t like being destroyed or on fire. I dislike the evacuation.  Everyone is leaving me unmanned.  Everybody is in a panic.  Not a nice sight.  No one takes care of me.  They all just run away and save their own asses.  I don’t care about the deaths.  I like oil.  That’s what I’m here for.  If I bring up a lot, I’m good.  I don’t care that they can’t stop the leak or about the coasts.  Regarding the sea creatures, it’s a pity that so many are going to die needlessly. They swim all around me, trying to build homes on me confidently, they didn’t seem to fear me.  It’s a pity, but I can’t help it.  Their deaths are terrible even for a platform without any feelings.  I don’t like the catastrophe, but if ever a fish lives here again it can make a cave home out of me, a mile down below the waves.  I like that there are clean up efforts.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing.  I wish I wasn’t here.  What I dislike most about being in this experience is being involved in disaster and death.

Ocean: I love Cynthia!  I don’t like the platform.  I love myself.  I like the workers and dislike BP a lot.  I dislike the blowout.  I’m used to oil, but not to such amounts.  I don’t care about the fire, evacuations, or deaths.  I dislike the oil a lot.  It’s too much coming out.  When it stays where it was, I like it.  I like the Gulf Stream and dislike a lot that they can’t stop the leak.  I love the coasts.  I love my sea creatures!  The fact that the oil kills them I dislike a lot.  That this is a catastrophe for dream self – I agree.  It is a catastrophe, and I’ve had enough of them.  I dislike it a lot.  I dislike the attempts to clean up because they are not enough and not the right kind.  Nobody cared enough about what to do in such cases.  They should be pouring millions of bacteria into the oil to devour it. They are instead pouring chemicals into me that are even harder for me to metabolize than oil.  The ocean bottom is always oozing oil.  I like that Cynthia is appalled and in shock.  Not that it makes any difference.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing.  I wish I wasn’t in it.  It’s a nightmare.  What I dislike most about being in this experience is getting polluted; getting suffocated and killed.

BP: I don’t care about Cynthia.  I like the platform very much.  We don’t like the ocean a lot.  It’s between us and the oil.  It’s dangerous, as you can see.  Nothing but trouble.  We don’t care about the workers.  There are so many more.  We have to say we care, but of course we really don’t.  People are replaceable, anytime. Regarding ourselves, we like ourselves a lot.  We hate the blowout and the fire.  We don’t like having to evacuate and the deaths.  They’re bad PR.  We love the oil.  You can make loads of money with it…We don’t like the Gulf Stream.  It might transport our problem further.  Even more people will be angry at us.  We hate that we can’t stop the leak. We hate being out of control. We have to admit we have no control. Terrible.  We said this could never happen.  Shit.  Bad PR.  People might not so easily forget this.  That’s real shit.  We like the coasts.  The ocean creatures we like to eat. But mostly we’re ambivalent.  Most of it is a bit scary. If they weren’t there people might not be so upset about us polluting the ocean.  That the spill kills the ocean creatures is bad PR.  It’s difficult for us to explain to our children.  We dislike that this is a catastrophe.  We like the clean-up efforts so we can tell people that we’re doing our best.  Also we get to feel that we are doing something good.  We don’t care that Cynthia feels appalled and in shock.  It’s her fault too that this happened.  She needs oil. We’re only doing it for her.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing. We’d rather not be there. What I dislike most about being in this experience is getting such bad PR.  It might lead to not getting further drilling permits.  It means less profit in the future.  What have we done to deserve that?

Sea Creatures: We like Cynthia a lot!  She’s funny!  She’s also gentle when she meets or touches us.  She also likes those of us that others don’t like, like sharks.  The platform is a nice hideaway and playground.  The ocean is our home. We love it!  We ARE the ocean!  We like the workers but if BP is what is responsible for poisoning us, then we don’t like them.  We hate the blowout.  We don’t care about the fire.  Pity the workers were in the lifeboats or we could have eaten them at least.  Sorry, but we’re practical.  The oil can’t help it that it’s where it is.  But we dislike it a lot.  It’s not where it belongs.  It’s deadly for us.  We like the Gulf Stream a lot!  It’s fun swimming in it!  It takes a lot of shit away and brings fresh water!  We’re not surprised these humans cannot close this leak.  We dislike it a lot.  People never think of the consequences.  We love the coasts! We can hide there; bring up our young. We have many nurseries there.  We like each other a lot.  Life is precious.  That this spill is killing us makes us very sad.  Life has become so difficult. So often there is disease and infection and not enough to eat.  And now on top of that…  It’s a big blow. Some of us might go extinct all together.  There are not so many turtles left among us, for instance.  There are some creatures in the depths where this oil sinks to that humans haven’t met yet.  They will go extinct before you will have known about their existence.  We dislike this catastrophe a lot. We dislike the cleanup efforts.  We need the oil taken out or stopped.  They are not stopping it and they are putting more in.   We like that Cynthia is appalled and in shock.  At least someone is compassionate.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing. What I dislike most about being in this experience is that we are being killed and are not able to bring up our babies.  The life for the ones of us that do survive is even harder.  It’s our duty to keep balance. This oil makes it impossible to keep balance.

Coasts: We like Cynthia.  We don’t like the platform. We love the ocean rolling ashore every day and licking at my rocks and the funny sounds of the pebbles!  We don’t like the workers; we dislike a lot BP.  They should leave us alone!  We dislike a lot the blowout and the fire, but it was to be expected.  We’ve been feeling the vibrations of the drilling even though it’s fifty miles out.  We don’t care about the evacuations and deaths. The oil is terrible.  It’s like a time bomb under your ass when you’re a coast. So far I felt pretty protected by all that sea bottom and by the big ocean.  It will stifle all life that I have on me when it reaches me.  Compared to the water I don’t have any chance of dilute it in any way.  I can only hope for some rain.  I love the Gulf Stream!  Hopefully it will take this shit away from me but then maybe to another part of me.  Hopefully it will help to dilute it.  We dislike that they can’t stop this.  We like ourselves a lot!  We love the sea creatures!  They’re funny!  They’re interesting!  The fact that they are being killed makes my life more boring.  No one will come to me.  We don’t feel hate like humans.  From my perspective the cleanup efforts keep a lot of the oil away from me.  I know it doesn’t help the ocean but it does help me.  I like that she is in shock and appalled.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing. I would rather not be in it.  What I dislike most about being in this experience is being afraid.  Not knowing whether in a short time everything that I’ve taken a long time to grow will be dead.

Gulf Stream: Cynthia’s a nice girl!  I don’t know about Platforms but I’ve heard about them. They have a lot of stupid people on them that drill holes into the bottom of the sea.  I love the ocean.  I communicate with it.  I bring messages from one ocean to another.  I am indifferent toward the workers.  I dislike BP a lot. They’ve given me many disgusting loads to carry.   The blowout is terrible.  I dislike it a lot.  I’m afraid I’ll end up carrying it on my shoulders and then it will be all my fault if tar balls appear anywhere in the Caribbean or in Africa.  I dislike the oil in these huge amounts where it is as a result of this catastrophe.  I love myself.  It’s terrible that they can’t stop the leak but it’s to be expected.  It means I’ll have to carry this shit for months.  I love my Coasts.  I bring them warmth.  I make palm trees grow where people don’t expect them. that’s me!  I usually bring good things.  I hate bringing bad things.  The efforts to clean up are not right.  These chemicals are awful.  Regarding Cynthia feeling appalled and in shock, she should just flow and not feel such things.  But I understand it.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing. I would rather not be in it.  What I dislike most about being in this experience is having to be the one that spreads it all.

Oil: I like the platform.  It’s what brought me up here.  I love the oceans!  It’s nice to whisk the workers off the platform.  I like that they help me come to the surface.  I am very ambivalent about BP.  Usually I don’t like them because they just use me all up.  Right now it’s quite nice to be out in the world.  No, we don’t like BP.   The blowout and the fire was a great show, wasn’t it?  Everything’s new for us for the first moment. We like it.   Then I just get wasted.  It’s interesting to see all the sea creataures.  But they all seem to die when they meet me or race away.  I don’t think I like any of this.  I think I would like to be back where I was.  I felt locked in but now that I’m out I think I want to go back.  Everybody wants me but nobody likes me.  If I could, I think I would just go back.  I didn’t want to be here.  I was pushed out here.  In the end I will get diluted.  It all looked like fun at the beginning.  I’m learning quickly.  No, I don’t like it.  I dislike that I kill.  I’m precious.  Silky.  Beautiful!  The Gulf Stream is WOW!  Definitely as powerful as me!  It can flow itself!  I need something to push me!  How do I feel that people can’t stop me from flowing out of the ground!  Ha ha ha!  I’m amvivalent.  I’m stronger than you.  You should have left me alone.  But also terrible.  I can’t stop myself.  I’m dependent on others to stop me.  I would like to stop polluting everything, but I can’t.  I don’t like going to the coasts!  No one likes me there!  But I like the coasts.  I love sea creatures but hate that I kill them.  This IS a catastrophe.  I am VERY big. There’s much more of me to come.  I was part of a balance down there in the earth.  Stability gets changed when I leave.  I will leave a vacuum that is destabilizing.  There’s quite a lot of movement going on down here.  I work as a shock absorber of waves that go through the rocks.  Regarding the clean up efforts, I don’t like them.  You can’t deal with me that way.  That Cynthia is appalled and shocked, I understand but I don’t care.  What I like most about being in this experience is nothing. I would rather not be in it.  What I dislike most about being in this experience is that I see the world.  That I can flow.

Dream Consciousness:

I like Cynthia.  She’s a good sort.  Not developed far enough, but on the way.  Regarding the oil platform, I create them so people can stand on them and have a good overview. This one is being abused.  I don’t like it.  I don’t like where it is, either.  I like the workers but I don’t like what they’re doing.  I dislike BP a lot!  They are dishonest megalomaniacs.  I dislike the blowout but I needed it to wake up mankind.  I just had to stop all the drilling they were wanting to do in the future.  I wish I could have done it in another way, but I had no more time.  In my experience human beings don’t listen in any other way.  I don’t care about the fire.  The BP heads should have died instead of the workers.  Catastrophes have little to do with justice.  I love the oil and the Gulf Stream.  I am ambivalent that they can’t stop the leak for the same reasons.  A lesson has to be taught.  It won’t be taught if BP can say, “We’re the heroes.  We’ve stopped it.”  You can’t just get away too cheaply when you mess with the powers that created all life.  I love the sea creatures!  I hate that they are being killed!  I like a lot that Cynthia is experiencing this as a catastrophe.  Maybe it will wake HER up.  I am ambivalent about the cleanup efforts not working, for the same reasons.  Actually, I hate it because I think it’s enough already of a shock and a wakeup call.  I wish the measures were working.  I’m sorry Cynthia is appalled and in shock, but it’s apt.  What else?  I wish everybody would stop and feel that way and not go on with business as usual.  What I like most about creating this experience is nothing. What I dislike most about creating this experience is bringing pain, suffering, and death.  It’s terrible to do that as a wake-up call.  This is not the way you ought to wake people up.

What surprises me about what I’ve heard is…

One thing I find surprising practically is that the oil is like a bubble under the crust of the earth is acting as a shock absorber.  When it’s not there the crust is destabilized and out of balance.  The more that we pump it out the more destabilized it will be.  I don’t know if this is accurate or not, but I’ve never thought of that.  The oil said it was like an absorber to absorb shock waves.  The other thing I find shocking is Dream Consciousness saying that this is necessary, because I think that’s crap.  I think that’s dangerous.  It’s like terrorists saying that the end justifies the means.  I find this disturbing.  I don’t think that the end justifies the means at ALL.  I am so totally against that.  For Dream Consciousness to say that it has to teach people a lesson, that the Exxon Valdiz was not enough.  What part of myself is it that has to talk like this?  I find it scary.  I doubt it and I distrust it.  It doesn’t give me a feeling that a higher, deeper voice has spoken but rather a feeling that I would like to find out more about that and check back, investigate, examine what part of myself this really is.  Most people bow before their dream consciousness as if it were God or their higher self or something.  It rather fills me with anger, like “Who the fuck to do you think you are that anyone needs to be taught a lesson like that?”

The autonomy of all of these different aspects of myself was unexpected and surprising to me, even though I have been practicing IDL/Dream Yoga for about three years.

Dream Commentary

“If I could change this dream in any way, would I change it?  If so, how?”

Platform: I would have my sound alarm button installed so the blowout converter would automatically shut off the flow of oil.

Ocean: They never would have drilled. They’re dealing with pressures they’re far too small to control.

BP: We wish we had installed the back up shut-off.  We shouldn’t have saved on that $500,000.00.

Sea Creatures: No drilling in the first place.

Coasts: The same.

Gulf Stream: The same.

Oil: The same:

Dream Consciousness: The same.

Dream Self: There IS no change.  What am I supposed to come up with, a fairy tale?  That it all will turn out great?  That it will teach mankind a great lesson?  From now on man will only do things in his authentic, true, own best interest instead of destroying himself????

Dreamage

(A rewrite of the dream based on a consensus of dream group member recommendations.  If there is no consensus, there can be no dreamage.  A synthesis group dream is usually its own dreamage.  Read it over before sleep as an affirmation of a higher pattern of internal integration and healing.)

No dreamage is possible, other than for it to have never happened.

Dream Summary Commentary

(“What part of this dreamer do you most closely personify?

“My strengths are…

“The reason why I am in this life experience is…”

“This dream group came together to…”)

Platform: I personify Cynthia’s practical perspective from which to take a particular overview.  I am in this experience because I’m a symbol of mankind’s desire to explore, conquer, and acquire.  I am a symbol of technical development.  I stand for the megalomanic belief that everything can be controlled.  This group of Cynthia’s self-aspects came together to create this nightmare of exploitation, pain, and death.  Good forces meeting bad forces.  It’s about survival.  It’s about who is going to win.

Ocean: I personify what Cynthia mainly consists of: salty water, inhabited by all sorts of life, streams, currents, waterways, and poisons.  I represent what everybody is made from.  I am the source of all life.  I am in this life experience because I am very, very powerful but I am not unlimited.  My ability to metabolize shit is not infinite.  I don’t have any time for hate, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep any kind of balance.  These self-aspects came together to show that tragedy is happening, that mankind is killing his own sources of life.

BP: We personify the greedy parts of Cynthia, the parts that want today and don’t think about the consequences tomorrow, the part that thinks it will get away with everything. The part that lies and is deceitful to the extent that it believes in its own lies.  I am in this life experience to be the bad guy.  We came together as a fight for life.

Sea Creatures: We personify Cynthia’s abundance!  The great worth of the tiniest worm to the biggest whale.  We are in this life nightmare to be the ones that die.  Abundance, variety is dying.  We came together to show her how serious the situation is.  No more time to play games.

Coasts: I personify Cynthia’s more solid part of her, the rock.  The parts that can’t be so easily shaken.  Being nagged at by time but not so easily shaken.  I’m a witness as well as involved.  I can see what’s coming…These self-aspects came together to destroy illusions.

Gulf Stream: I personify Cynthia’s strong, flowing power that goes on no matter what – whether full of life or death.  I am in this life experience to show that everything’s connected to everything and everybody else.  All these self-aspects came together in this experience to praise life and to say how unique it is.  You won’t find another planet like this one.

Oil: I most closely personify Cynthia’s residue of ancient life.  Something that should be used sparingly, like medicine, rather homeopathic.  Old, ancient stuff that someone shouldn’t mess with.  I am in this life experience as what everybody wants.  People fight over me.  I’m what’s kept everything going so far.  This group came together to make people stop, realize what they are doing and start using me wisely. To remind them that there is not only me but the power of the water, of the wind, of the temperature of the earth.

Dream Consciousness: I most closely personify her conscience, the part that tries to put one and one together.  The part that knows what is true and right. The reason why I created this dream is to tell her that she will never enter the same ocean again, like you never enter the same river twice.  I want to tell her that so that she will not see Bimini as her paradise, somewhere she can go to balance out and crank up.  It’s all the same everywhere; everything is out of balance, wherever you look.  This group came together to show how just one basic greed can be enough to endanger something as big and old as the ocean  and how that same blind greed makes the ice melt and the temperatures rise and turn storms into cyclones.

Waking Commentary

As (this dream group member), if I were living this dreamer’s waking life, how would I live it differently? Would I handle this dreamer’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

How to not lose hope for mankind and become a total cynic.

Not losing hope for my own life.  Why get up in the morning?  Why worry about smoking or not in the face of catastrophes like this? Depression.  “Why bother?  Life is almost over anyway.

• Existential fear.  Hardly being able to pay bills now.  How bad will things get?   Should I go to Miami to help clean up the coast?  Should I go for a last swim with the dolphins before the oil kills them all?

Platform: I wouldn’t dig so deep.  If you don’t, you don’t get so much shit flying around your ears.  I would spend time in the garden looking instead of digging.   Regarding her first life issue, seeing the direction mankind is heading into, why bother about such small fears as to whether one is changing into a cynic or not?  Laughable!  Regarding losing hope for her own life, if she lost that hope she would be no better than anyone else. that’s good enough reason not to do that one.  She should treat herself the way she wants this planet treated.  The bottom of the ocean is leaking oil – she is rotting away anyway. Her system has to take care of oil leaking naturally into her without needing to do anything on top of that, like not treating herself well or poisoning herself well, or pouring extra shit inside.  The ocean doesn’t get out of balance because of a little poison here or there. Excesses get one out of balance.  Regarding dealing with her existential fear, I can’t say.  Flying into Miami to say goodbye to the sandy white beaches or to the Bahamas.  Maybe get on Jeffrey’s boat and spoil the good time his clients are having now – what’s the use of that?  If she did that it would mean that she really had given up all hope.  But sometimes to have hope you have to give up some hope.  She doesn’t have to fear about not getting enough to eat or not having medical care.

Ocean: If I were in charge of Cynthia’s life I wouldn’t smoke.    I would accept everything inside me.  I would be more aware of the fact that I too have limits.  Regarding not losing hope in mankind, it’s her choice.  There is nothing that gives you the reason to hope.  It’s your own choice.  You create hope out of yourself.  Regarding not losing hope for her own life, I wouldn’t give up life before I’m dead.  As  long as there’s life, there’s hope.  I don’t know if I’m going to turn into a big stinking mass.  I’m not going to give up hope that I will be able to metabolize it all, though it’s a terrible job.  I won’t give up hope before I’m dead.  Regarding her existential fear, I would exist and BE as best as I can.  It’s all inside of me. What can I do? Better accept it and start the work of getting rid it.

BP: If I were in charge of Cynthia’s life I would install a blow out preventer.  If there was too much pressure she would scream and howl so everybody could hear it.  Then she would just shut down.  That would create safety, stability.  Regarding hope for mankind, I can’t answer that.  I have lost hope in mankind even though I often believe in my own lies.  Regarding Cynthia’s fear of losing hope for her own life, I would party and celebrate.  Regarding her existential fear, cheat and lie and make the most of it.

Sea Creatures: If we were in charge of Cynthia’s life we wouldn’t worry about the future, even though we feel.  We enjoy life. We feel what we feel.  We suffer, we die. We don’t worry about the future.   We don’t think.  Regarding her fear of becoming a cynic, we don’t know.  We aren’t cynical.  We don’t give up hope.  Regarding her existential fears, we would live every moment.  Each one is special enough.  We don’t do the future.

Coasts: I personify Cynthia’s more solid part of her, the rock, the parts that can’t be so easily shaken.  We are being nagged at by time, but not so easily shaken.  I’m a witness as well as involved.  I can see what’s coming…These self-aspects came together to destroy illusions.    We would stand patiently and await what’s coming.  We can’t run away.  Neither can Cynthia.

Gulf Stream: If I were in charge of Cynthia’s life I would flow and help dilute as much as possible.  It is no real solving of the problem but it creates a chance to get things back into balance.  Regarding her life issues, they are her choice.  It’s no one else’s problem.  Every morning when I wake up I would choose not to become a cynic but to just flow and to do my job.

Oil: If I were in charge of Cynthia’s life I would have my importance but not to have it overestimated.  I would be aware that I am replaceable and I wouldn’t believe that I am irreplaceable.  Regarding not becoming a cynic or depressed, I’m deeply pressed, but I don’t get depressed!  I just AM de-pressed!  I am a great force that’s closed in.  She would be far more patient.  She would be able to think in big, great waves, in centuries, in millennia instead of centuries.  Then it wouldn’t be so important whether she finds her paradise the same the next time she goes or not.  She would be much more content.

Dream Consciousness: If I were in charge of Cynthia’s life – what do you mean? I AM responsible for Cynthia’s life!  Her life issues are her choice!  I wouldn’t get depressed or become a cynic.  I would just live and die.  If I get too weak I would give up.  I would know that I’m not so important but I would also know that it’s a good example for others not to give up too easily.

Identification Commentary

If I could designate specific occasions in the dreamer’s waking life when I would recommend that he imagine that he is me, what would those occasions be?

Platform: When she wants a good overview and when she wants to drill a bit deeper.

Ocean: When she wants to understand how she poisons herself and what harm she does to herself.

BP: When she needs to really put on a show!  Impress, deceive others!  Intimidate others.

Sea Creatures: When she feels helpless and tiny and small.  Then she will know that the smallest of us makes a difference, count, and make a hole a home.

Coasts: When she needs a second opinion, another kind of overview perspective.  I do not think of myself as a beach but as rocks and cliffs.

Gulf Stream: Whenever she is afraid to flow, feeling she might bring harm.  If she becomes me she will know it is her nature to flow and spread things.

Oil: When she needs to be quietly sitting somewhere…peaceful.

Dream Consciousness: When she wants to write a book!  I will supply her with enough ideas, with a plot and all.  I AM the dream maker!

Action Plan

(All of the above recommendations for waking life application are not of equal importance.  You have to decide how you wish to prioritize them and what you want to do with them.  But take some action!  It is a way of demonstrating that you take your inner direction seriously.  If you have it wrong, future dream groups will cybernetically correct your course.)

Be the oil, not having to do anything to be treasured.  Just resting, being who I am and being lazy.

Taking better care of myself.  See where I poison myself.  Using the ocean as a mirror for myself.  It’s difficult enough for my system to keep itself in balance without putting a lot of additional shit into myself.

• The Coast and the Platform are both important perspectives that I need.

Sociogram Commentary

The purpose of the Dream Sociogram Commentary is to interpret the depiction of group member preferences as they appear in the Dream Sociogram.  Information on how Dream Sociograms are constructed and how they are read can be found here.

Overall Pattern: This group’s preferences have created an antithetical Dream Sociogram.  There are five basic Dream Sociogram patterns possible: thesis, in which there is bipolar placement on one or more of the three element (chosen axes – form, process, or affect); synthesis, in which only positive  axis preferences are in evidence (“everyone prefers everyone else”); high synthesis, an extreme variation of thesis patterns, in which positive preferences are very strong (“everyone loves everyone else”); antithetical, in which we find bipolar placements on the vertical acceptance axis and usually, but not necessarily, bipolar placements on one or more of the three element axes; and nightmare antithetical, in which persecutors prefer the pattern and normally accepting self-aspects reject it.  While a nightmare may show up as a nightmare antithetical Dream Sociogram, such groups typically create antithetical distributions. Nightmare antithetical patterns are psychic hell.

Acceptance Axis: We know this group of self-aspects interacts in an antithetical pattern because there are rejecting self-aspects on the lower half of the vertical (acceptance) axis, indicating significant self-rejection regarding this life experience.  We know which parts of the dreamer are rejecting and self-critical in this group by seeing who is where on the negative pole of the acceptance axis. We find that the Gulf Stream, Coasts, Platform, and British Petroleum are all rejecting self-aspects, with the first two the most internally ambivalent in their rejection, intensifying the complexity of the conflict.  The fact that some of the rejectors are victimized (Gulf Stream, Coasts) while others are the victimizers (BP, Platform) speaks to the profound and seemingly unresolvable depth of the conflict within the dreamer regarding this life nightmare.  However, it is important to note that it could be much worse.  If all normally preferring self-aspects (Dream Consciousness, Ocean, and Sea Creatures) were rejecting (situated on the lower half of the Acceptance Axis), and if all commonly rejecting self-aspects (BP, Oil, Platform) were preferring (situated on the upper half of the Acceptance Axis), we would have a nightmare antithetical pattern, in which intrapsychic conflict is much more profound.  Others, creating their own version of this world nightmare, might indeed generate such a pattern.

The Acceptance Axis placements answer the questions, “What aspects of myself are most preferring of this experience?”  “What aspects of myself are most rejecting of this experience?”  What are the relationships of these to one another?” The basic conflict on the Acceptance Axis is between Dream Consciousness and British Petroleum.  Dream Consciousness is the voice of that aspect of Cynthia that created all players, actions, and feelings in her personal experience of this life nightmare.  BP is a greedy part of herself that does not hear or represent the needs of other self-aspects that are affected by its actions.  Normally we resolve such conflicts by taking conscious action.  In this case, Cynthia’s waking identity, represented by Dream Self, is in terrible internal conflict, and this basically makes decisive response impossible, leaving open only paralysis or reactive, impulsive gestures as perceived alternatives.  The other choosing self-aspects experience themselves as victimized, passive, or powerless and so are not experienced as providing support for change or in working toward a solution to this nightmare.  It is important to remember that the Dream Sociogram represents preferences at the point in time that the Dream Sociomatrix was created; it does not reflect the reality of the practical, concrete, and helpful contributions that can come out of the subsequent commentaries, nor does it represent the reality from the perspectives of other people or from the actual ocean, sea life, coasts, or Gulf Stream themselves.  While Dream Yoga/IDL gives them voice, it is one person’s voice, not some ultimate truth.

Form Axis: The form axis places positive preferences by choosing characters toward chosen characters at 4:00 and negative preferences at 10:00 in the Dream Sociogram.  This axis answers the questions, “What self-aspects does the group as a whole prefer?  “What self-aspects does the group as a whole reject?”  “What are the relationships of these perspectives to one another?” We find that the most natural self-aspects, and those which are experienced as victimized by this life nightmare, are the most preferred.  We find those which are experienced as abusive, persecuting, or man-made are most rejected, which of course makes sense in this case, but is not what you will always find when you create Dream Sociomatrices and Sociograms.  Although Dream Self experiences herself as depressed, passive, helpless, hopeless, and angry, the group as a whole does not reject her, but instead is either neutral or preferring of her.  Oil is not rejected, although it is viewed with moderate group ambivalence.  The workers that made the spill possible are preferred by the group.

Remember that you are looking at a metaphorical depiction of those internal perspectives that are in conflict.  This conflict creates fear, depression, and anxiety for the dreamer.  To resolve it, she needs to somehow reach a higher order integration of these different parts of herself.  But how?  That is why we have the subsequent commentaries, an action plan, and a system of follow-up accountability with Practitioners.  Cynthia is authentically stuck in the clash of authentic internal world views.  To make lasting changes, she needs support in listening to and applying the reasonable advice of her own internal community.

Process Axis: This is the horizontal axis on which the group preferences toward individual actions are placed.  Actions are processes.  They are not things and they may or may not contain a feeling aspect.  While actions could be interviewed, they typically are not, because it is easier to be a “thing” than a process, and because processes are already attached to things.  So interviewing both is somewhat redundant, but can be done. If you are a Buddhist, all things are actually processes in disguise. There are no independently existing “things.” Some action elements, like fire, are obviously processes but can be easily interviewed as dream characters.  Others, like “considered,” are best teated as chosen elements.

In this antithetical constellation, notice that there are no preferred actions.  Think about that.  We have many ancient and wise members of this group.  None of them can recommend any of the actions contained in the Sociomatrix. That does not mean that there are none.  They could be in the original narrative and not included in the Dream Sociomatrix.  They could not show up until the commentaries.  What this states, however, is the existential reality of depression and hopelessness for this dreamer.  She does not have access to behaviors that are recommended by the group.  Instead, we have a polarity among rejected actions, with “deaths,” i.e. dying!!!! as being the least rejected action by this group.  It is preferred over merely escaping (evacuation) or what is passing for cleaning up the mess, actions that the group dismisses as ineffectual when they are not actually making the situation worse.  More actions are highly rejected: “can’t stop,”“blow out,” catastrophe,” and “kills.”  These are behaviors that the dreamer doesn’t want to identify with and are not part of any solution, but that she is identified with – or they wouldn’t be part of her experience. They must be somehow dealt with if there is going to be any lasting solution.

Affect Axis: Any emotion that is noted across the top of the Dream Sociomatrix is placed on this axis.  The preferred emotions go on the positive axis, at 2:00, and the rejected emotions go on the negative axis, at 7:00.  It is typical to only have one or two emotions reported.  In this case there are two, “appalled,” and “in shock,” that were reported together and are close enough in meaning that they are treated as one.

Note that Cynthia predicted that this feeling would be rejected.  It wasn’t.  How come?  Element placement in a Dream Sociogram isn’t determined by the preferences or world view of Dream Self, in this case, Cynthia.  They are determined by the cumulative stated preferences of all choosers.  In this case what that means is that the group as a whole preferred Cynthia feeling appalled and in shock.   This is an excellent example of how intrasocial groups teach us to question our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings by looking at them from perspectives that transcend and include our own.

How can Cynthia best use the data from a Dream Sociogram?  She is looking at a snapshot of one moment in time of the relationships among various relevant internal preferences and perspectives that are engaged and invested in this life issue.  If she were to create another Dream Sociomatrix and Sociogram after having worked through the commentaries she would be looking at a different constellation, because she will have grown as a result of practicing deep listening to her various self-aspects.  In essence, the Dream Sociogram graphically depicts how, where, and why she is stuck in pain regarding this particular “dream,” and the commentaries provide recommendations for what to do to get unstuck.  To understand more about the particular placements Cynthia can refer back to the Sociomatrix Commentary, which elaborates or explains why, in many cases, this or that self-aspect had the preferences that it did. Inner help is going to come from those self aspects that are most preferring and most preferred.  That means Cynthia needs to ask, “What parts of myself do Dream Consciousness, Sea Creatures, Ocean, Gulf Stream, and Coasts most closely personify and how can I strengthen their influence in my decision making regarding this life issue?”  “How can I help them to be there when I think, feel, and act around this life issue?”  The answer to the first question is in the Dream Summary Commentary where these self-aspects say what parts of Cynthia they most closely personify.  The answer to the second is in the  Waking and Identification Commentaries.

Predictions/Actual:

Most preferring: Gulf Stream Dream Consciousness

Most rejecting: BP BP

Most preferred character: Sea Creatures Sea Creatures

Most rejected character: BP BP

Most preferred action: Clean up none (but “clean up” least rejected)

Most rejected action: can’t stop pollution kills ocean creatures

Most preferred feeling: ? appalled; in shock

Most rejected feeling: appalled; in shock none

If we know our own minds, then we should be able to accurately predict our preferences.  In this case, Cynthia did better than average.  She was correct for three out of eight: most rejecting, most preferred, and most rejected characters.  However, she did not predict that Dream Consciousness, the part of her greater identity that created the “dream” in the first place, would be by far the most preferring character.  Why not?  She also was unable to predict that there would be no preferred action at all or that “killing ocean creatures” would be the most rejected action.  Why not?  She could not predict that being appalled and in shock would be preferred by the group instead of rejected by them.  Why not?

These are not trivial questions.  Either we know our own minds or we don’t.  If we cannot predict our own preferences, that is no problem when our preferences don’t matter or the preferences in question are insignificant.  But if our preferences do matter and if the preferences in question are significant, then not knowing our own minds is far more than a matter of self-control and self-image; it implies that we really don’t know who we are and have far less control over who we are than we commonly assume in our daily lives.  IDL/Dream Yoga demonstrates all of these points for anyone who wants to evaluate them with their own Dream Sociometric and IDL interviewing protocol experiments.

“What I am saying to myself is…”

Statements from elaborations are rewritten here as “I” statements.

It has to come together like this to show how serious it is, that it’s almost too late.  No more time to fool around, to play games.  It’s high time to stop the madness if we want to more fully live.  I get that I need to stop my greed for all sorts of things: cigarettes, meat, houses, money, fame…

How would history be different if, instead of reflexively interpreting their experiences, key figures had interviewed them instead?  One can never know, but what we can know is that the world would indeed be a different place, because instead of creating a world based on our projections, we would have created a world based on the multiple perspectives of our self-aspects.  Would this make a huge difference?  You bet.

So what might Saul have heard from Jesus if Saul had thought to interview him? Due to a recent discovery of parchment in a pottery jug found in the caves at Qumran on the shore of the Dead Sea, we now have the answer!

Saul: My Lord! Was that truly you that knocked me off my horse and blinded me with your radiance?

Jesus: Not exactly. I didn’t knock you off your horse. He got scared and threw you off. But yes, you did get blinded by my radiance. In two thousand years they will call that a somatoform disorder of the conversion variety, but never mind.

•
Saul: Are you really you, the resurrected Lord Christ Jesus, appearing literally to me in this vision, or are you some aspect of my own consciousness. or both?

Jesus: Now Saul! We both know that there is no way you could be asking that question! Your Bronze Age world view never imagined that I could be anything other than either literal or a hallucination! But if you could ask such a question, I would answer it by saying: I AM BOTH REAL AND AN ASPECT OF YOURSELF! On the one hand, you really saw me and the reality of my presence gave you an overpowering reason to change your life for the better: you stopped killing people! On the other hand, how could you even recognize me if there was not something of my radiance, awe, sacredness, majesty, and life transformative potential already existing within you?
•

Saul: How can you say that! You are so much more than I could ever be, Lord!

Jesus: I know that it is difficult for your concrete and literal prepersonal and pre-rational consciousness to grasp, Saul, but all of what you perceive as me already exists within you! If you take me as your savior, are you going to doubt me now, Saul?
•

Saul: But if I believe you, Lord, that means that my message of salvation and redemption will be entirely different! It means that I can no longer tell people that they were saved by the you that was born, died and resurrected! It means that I must tell them that their savior exists as an ever-present potential within themselves that they can access at any time, without the mediation of priests or religions! What will that do to the Community of Saints? What will that do to sin? What will that do to guilt? What will that do to salvation? JESUS!

Jesus: Yes?
•

Saul: Er sorry. I was just sorta thinking out loud. There’s another problem, Jesus. People see themselves as stuck, miserable, and either unworthy of salvation or incapable of giving it to themselves. They NEED and WANT me to give them a message of somebody, something outside of themselves that has what they lack, someone to believe in. They don’t want to believe in themselves! They want kings and Gods and priests!

Jesus: Your lack of faith and confidence in humanity saddens me, Saul. The nature of Spirit is to awaken life to its presence. Some will awaken to their potential sooner than others. Others will choose to spend their lives disempowering themselves by giving their power away to gods or to others. But you, Saul, have to decide which message YOU are going to stand for in YOUR life. That’s all that matters!
•

Saul: All right. I hear you. So Jesus, if this vision were a wake-up call from Spirit, what would the message be?

Jesus: Saul, you’ve got it! It’s to WAKE UP! It’s to stay in dialogue with me, just like you are doing now! It’s to use me to help you with your mundane daily problem solving! It’s to so become me, through identifying with me, as you are doing now, that my presence transforms your consciousness! How do you think I score, zero to ten, in the six core qualities, Saul???? When you become me you will identify with an aspect of yourself that is exactly so! Don’t take my word for it Saul! What do you feel when you become me? Is it not true?
•

Saul: You are right, Lord! I experience great confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing when I allow myself to fully identify with you!

Jesus: So what makes you think that all others cannot as well?
•

Saul: Yes, Lord! But one more question…you said that when I become you I will identify with “an aspect of myself” that is divine! What did you mean?

Jesus: Saul, you can’t believe that God is limited! You can’t believe that I am the only possible manifestation of his divinity, can you?
•

Saul: But lord! You are special!

Jesus: I tell you, Saul, that the destiny of man is to become any speck of dust, any rag of cloth, any dead animal, and find that it gives voice to divinity! If you must convert the heathen to exorcise your guilt for your past bigotry and cruelty, then convert them to THAT message!

•

Oh – and Saul – one more thing.  Will you please give up this “savior” shit?  It’s embarrassing. You disempower not only yourself by putting the source of your salvation somewhere else, but you disempower me as a part of yourself.  That’s insulting.  But even more important, you don’t need salvation.  It keeps you in the role of victim to always be looking for someone like me to rescue you.  And I’ve got better things to do than disempowering you by thinking I’m you’re everything,pal.  If you require a rescuer you’ll not only make those who believe in me into victims of sin, the devil, unbelievers, and evildoers for the next two thousand years; you’ll turn them into persecutors who will kill and abuse in my name.  That may be religion, and it may be Christianity, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me.

•

Saul: Yes, my lord. But I don’t understand what you’re saying…???

•

Jesus:  Sigh.  It’s OK, Saul.  Go ahead and be Paul.  I love you anyway.

•

Note: As soon as Saul wrote this dialogue he decided that it must be the work of demons that were trying to dissuade him from his Mission. He changed his name to Paul to purge himself of any memory of these demonic thoughts. I found it torn to bits among his papers after his death. I carried it here to these caves in Qumran where this message might find the light of day in a time when people might be ready to accept it.

•

We can’t change the past, but we can learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes. We have the opportunity to create internal, familial, and a global culture based on consensual perspectives rather than on our own interpretations.  Are we mature and selfless enough to do so?

Those who confuse their mental representations with external events and think that the former are real or accurate may experience profound transpersonal states, but they are not stabilized on a transpersonal level of development, regardless of what they believe or tell you.  As we have seen, the classic example of this delusion involves Saul on the Road to Damascus.  Lacking the ability to distinguish his mental representations from external events, Saul assumed that the light that he saw was actually Jesus asking him why he was persecuting him.  In fact, Saul did more than assume; he was absolutely convinced that he was being visited by the risen Christ himself.  This conviction, not the teachings of Jesus or the person of Peter, was the rock upon which Christianity was then built.   Saul’s pivotal experience was a late prepersonal to early personal Bronze age revelation of a transpersonal state, rather than a manifestation of a transpersonal level of development by Saul, who up to that time had been busy creating meaning in his life by murdering people.

If Saul had been able to differentiate his mental representations from external events he would have ruled out the former before assuming the latter when he was convinced he saw and heard Jesus.  This he did not do because he lacked the distinctions necessary to do so.  He also lacked the conceptual tools to distinguish between his mental representations (his conception of Jesus) and external events (hearing Jesus’ voice and seeing a blinding light).

Like Saul’s, the meaning and purpose of your life is created and powered by your belief in your self-created delusions.  For example, if Saul had been able to make this core distinction between what he experienced as real and external and his mental representation of what he saw, it would have occurred to him that what he saw might have been a self-created mental representation, regardless of the depth of his conviction that it was an external reality.  He then could have imagined that he was that representation and simply asked it, “Jesus, are you externally real, or a self-created mental representation, or some combination of objective reality and my subjective experience?”  While the answer that he would have gotten to this question may not have been truthful, the ability to ask this question is more important than the accuracy of the answer that is received, because it implies the existence of possibilities that not only Saul but most human beings never consider before they make critical and fundamental life decisions.  Those decisions determine, to a great extent, success, happiness, and peace of mind.  Now, almost two thousand years after Saul became Paul, almost no “normal” people and very few spiritual adepts have learned to make the distinctions Saul  missed.  Far fewer use it to support their spiritual development.   What is the price the world has paid for our not doing so?  Are we willing and able to be more spiritually mature than was Saul?

Is there life after death? If so, what is it like?  People have been debating this issue for thousands of years and coming up with all sorts of answers.  Is it like a dream?  Is it like deep sleep?  Is it more awake than waking?  Integral Deep Listening assumes that, regardless of whatever else life after death is, our awareness of it is mediated by our perception, which is itself conditioned by our social and cultural contexts.  Consequently, if we want to understand more clearly we need to suspend both our beliefs and skepticism and simply interview the people, objects, and contexts that appear in near death and life after death experiences.

Why would we want to do so?  Because such suspension of our biases and prejudices, in favor of simply listening to what this or that aspect of our greater, cosmic identity has to say is a fundamental act of respect and receptivity.  The result is that we are more likely to experience what wants to be heard instead of simply hearing what we want to hear.  When that happens, our waking biases are reinforced and we unwittingly confirm our own prejudices.  When, on the other hand, we experience what wants to be heard, we overcome the limitations of our previous worldview and grow into a perspective that transcends and includes it.  The result heals, balances, and transforms our lives.

The following example shows how you can work with someone else’s after-death experience as if it were your own.  That’s because it is yours – it is part of your waking dream, and spirit makes no differentiation between waking and sleeping dreams and between my experiences and yours.  To the extent that you take the experiences of others and internalize them, they become yours.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Getting and staying clear.

2. Getting Integral Deep Listening to children and those who support their growth

3. Continuing this work in my next lifetime.

My near-death or after death experience:

When my mother was dying, Annette, one of my two sisters, saw a “being of light” appear in the room at the foot of her bed, with outstretched arm.  At the moment of my mother’s death, she saw her rise up out of her body and go with the figure.

What do you make of this experience?

Annette is intuitive with a long history of experiences and memories of before birth  and past life experiences.  They make her take the long view of life, which is a very good thing.

Choose a character, object, or context in this experience to interview…

The Being of Light

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Being of Light, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am coming to greet and accompany your mother Grace in her birth into my world.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I am tens in all six of your core qualities.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I have no weaknesses or limitations myself, however the nature of my reality is that it is rarely clearly disclosed to humans.  The openings between these two realms are infrequent, fleeting, and fragile, from a human point of view.  Otherwise, more would see the world and themselves very differently.  This will change as humanity evolves.  Our culture is not human culture.  But it is “humane” culture and it does embrace all humanity.

Being of Light, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  What aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

I am that part of yourself that does not die, that is spirit, and that embodies the six core qualities.

Being of Light, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Being of Light, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I cannot be hurt or die.  I have no fear.

Compassion: 10 I give myself completely and receive without reservation.

Wisdom: 10 One with the source of all, what is there not to know?

Acceptance: 10 What is there not to accept?

Inner Peace: 10 Nothing can disturb my beingness and presence.

Witnessing: 10 I am like the sky; I witness everything.

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He would incarnate my consciousness and the consciousness of my realm (they are the same), which is a major purpose of life and evolution.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

I would redouble my efforts to embody those six core qualities.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Getting and staying clear: More meditation being the sky breathing you.

2. Getting Integral Deep Listening to children and those who support their growth: Continue to generate light in people, without regard to its source or consequence for you.

3. Continuing this work in my next lifetime: Lifetimes are stories, like dreams.  Spirit doesn’t do lifetimes or dreams.  Just focus on maximizing your experience of the six core qualities now.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. Beingness. Bringing it forward, into the forefront of awareness.

2. Continue to suspend assumptions and ask questions.

3. Enjoy life!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Only when you want to live!

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To help him wake up, to help him think outside of the box and to remember that there will always be contexts, realities, and dreams that transcend and include his puny understanding.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Go back to sleep! Stay addicted to his normal viewpoint, frame of reference, and life dream.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

It’s a work in progress!  Everybody is in the same situation, which makes life a tragicomedy.  Just laugh at the absurdity of it all to keep yourself from being overwhelmed by the poignancy of all the needless suffering.

I think this person had this experience because…

his sister told him about it.  Because it is a statement of the reality of life after death.

I think this event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

Anything that is external is objective and therefore seems more real and more powerful, partially because it is experienced as less controlled and less known.  Anything that is internal is subjective and therefore seems less real.  It is experienced as more controllable and more mundane.  All of these assumptions are incorrect, in that they are partial.  They are seen to be illusory whenever they are questioned.   On one level I came to provide comfort and direction.  From another, I came to demonstrate that the dream of life never stops.  From my perspective it is seamless.

What have you heard yourself say?

That such experiences come to wake us up out of our complacency regarding what is real and true and what is not.   That we have to be careful about drawing conclusions about whether such experiences are real or true or what they ultimately mean.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Wake up!  Become the six core qualities!  Become beingness!

What experiences have you had with near death experiences and life after death?  Interview them!  You can find the format here.  Please send me a copy and I will anonymously post it on this site to help others!

Here is an example of an interview that builds identification with an aspect of your experience that is always constantly witnessing and meditating: the sky.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Cultivating the Witness in meditation

2 Generalizing meditative consciousness to my everyday mind

3 Following the recommendations of interviewed self-aspects

Imagine that you are sitting in meditation witnessing your thoughts, your feelings, your images, your bodily and energic sensations, your beingness.  How do you feel?

Free; at peace.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Clear space or clear light

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

The sky.  The sky looks blue, but only in the distance and only during the day.  Actually, the sky has no color.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Sky, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I encompass all things.  I have no future or past, or “now.”  There is no time or space for me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I am beyond all likes and dislikes, all preferences, because I encompass all things, including all preferences.  This is a strength, because it means I am beyond the drama that preferences create.  It is not that I prefer not having preferences, because that too is a preference.  It is that I don’t do preferences.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I am so subtle it is very easy for me to be ignored and taken for granted when I am in fact the context which makes life possible.  This is not a weakness for me and it’s nothing I dislike, it’s simply a fact that most beings are asleep to me.

Sky, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?

In a manner of speaking.  From my point of view, I created him, I dreamt him…

Sky, what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

That “part” (although I am not a thing or a “part”) that does not die, that is formless, spaceless, and is completely awake and aware.

(Character,) if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I already take any and every form.  When animals and plants breathe me I am intimately associated with every cell of their being.  Rocks contain me.  There is nowhere that I am not.  There is nothing that I am not.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Sky, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I can’t die.  I know no fear.  There is nothing that I am in conflict with.  I always completely accomplish being me.

Compassion: 10 I give myself completely and selflessly to every form that wants to breath me in or make me a part of it.  I accept completely and selflessly that which any plant, animal, factory, or volcano wants to give off into me.

Wisdom: 10 I am ageless and I experience everything from every perspective.  There is nothing I do not know that has ever been done, thought, or felt.

Acceptance: 10 I accept myself and others completely.  Wind, tornadoes, dark, light, meteors, death, drama, nuclear explosions – I accept it all.

Inner Peace: 10 What’s there not to be peaceful about?  I embrace all things.

Witnessing: 10 I witness everything, even space, and every form.

How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He would be in a constant state of meditation, regardless of what he was doing, thinking, or feeling.  His mind would be clear and centered and that would be the foreground or figure.  The contents of his mind, which are normally the foreground or figure, would still occur, but they would be in the background, or ground.  He would witness both his inner world and his outer world with equanimity and wakefulness, whether awake, dreaming, or deeply asleep.

If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?

I would be fully present as myself at all times.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Regarding cultivating the witness in meditation, I would have him become me when he meditates.  Not see me but become me.  Become me as a ten in each of the six core qualities.

Regarding generalizing meditative consciousness to everyday mind, I would do the same.  Anchor to a constant awareness of the sky as breath and prana.

Regarding following the recommendations of interviewed self-aspects, I would remember that awareness is everything.  That means reading them over regularly, keeping reminders of those recommendations close at hand.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. Becoming me.

2. Allowing me to run his life and make his decisions.

3. Regularly asking me my opinion.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would?

When meditating, when in drama, when confused or unsure.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To help him wake up.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Addiction to the drama of his thoughts, feelings, images, sensations, and states of being.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

Follow my recommendations, above.

Joseph, what have you heard yourself say?

Who I really am isn’t an identity or a being or a self.  It’s not a “part” of me.  It transcends and includes all forms.  It doesn’t “have” the six core qualities, it transcends and includes them.  There is no birth or death, time or space or drama from this perspective.  It is in a constant state of meditation.  Becoming it will automatically put me in more or less of a meditative state, depending upon how completely I am willing to identify with it.  This perspective is not internal to me.  It witnesses me.  It does not judge me or pass judgment on what I do or do not do.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Awaken to a perspective that transcends and includes all other perspectives.  It does not mean it is better or best, only that it becomes available as an option once it is learned, where before it was not an option.

This interview is only an example.   It cannot replace and is not meant to replace your own direct contact with your own unique and personal experience.  For this process to heal, balance, and transform your own life, enhance your own ability to meditate, and build within you an ongoing meditative consciousness, you must first interview your own sky (you will find the protocol here), then practice becoming it, particularly when you meditate and as you fall asleep at night.

Please leave us your comments regarding this interview. By all means, share your own experiences with the method.  We all grow faster when we share what works and does not work for us.

I am in a garden looking at three large white stones.  I am lucid, meaning that I know that I am dreaming.  I watch as the stones stand up on “legs” and sing, to the tune of “Shine on, Harvest Moon,” “Sign on, Sign on the bottom line…”

I knew they were encouraging me to go with the fellow that I had interviewed the day before, but I didn’t want to be misled and have my financial life built around say, a bit of undigested tofu.  So I did something I never realized was possible before I took Dr. Dillard’s course: I asked the stones questions.  I asked the first stone, “Who are you?”  It answered, “I represent your parents.”  I then asked the same question of the second stone.  It said, “I represent your grandparents.”  Then I asked the third stone the same question.  It said, “I am your friends and mentors.”  In the dream I thought, “If the three cornerstones of my life are telling me I have to do this, then I need to do it.”

In the following days I handed my money over to this fellow, feeling a strange sense of ease and acceptance about it, something that is unusual for me around letting go of money and control over it.

Four months later I was starting to get a divorce.  It would have been a disaster for me to have been trying to manage my money and to also go through the emotional turmoil of that time.

That year ended up being the second best financial year I had.  This fellow turned my five million into six.

This dreamer did not simply go lucid.  He used his lucidity not to change the dream but to have the presence of mind to ask characters in the dream about issues of concern to him.  The results were transformative for him. Not only did he know the “meaning” of the dream, but it resulted in a course of action that had huge repercussions for his financial security for the rest of his life.

The past life memory came from a holotophic breathwork workshop with Stan Grof and Jack Kornfeld.  I had been doing the breathing for about an hour.  I was suddenly thrown into a Mesoamerican life in which I was doing an initiation to become a full priest.  I had to spend time with a jaguar with the objective of making it a brother. We wrestled in a cage, fought, rolled over each other and exerted strength against each other as long as we could until we were both at the point of exhaustion.  At that point we realized that we were brothers and that we would work together in our life.

From there, that jaguar became me and I became a high priest.  I killed it and wore its skin.  As the priest I would take the prisoners who were caught in wars.  I would sacrifice them to the jaguar.  I would take the obsidian knife and cut their hearts out.  I would take upon myself all of the fears and hopes and concerns and desires of my people. All of the psychic phenomena – thoughts, feelings, and demons that would prey on them.  It was a sacrifice to the jaguar.  The prisoners were the vehicles by which the demons would go to the spirit world.  The jaguar is my ability to transmute the suffering of my people and get rid of it.  I had to merge with the jaguar in order to be able to do that.

Since I had that experience, years ago, it hasn’t had much effect on me because it’s so far out of the ordinary that I have never figured out how to use it.   My X made a needlepoint of a jaguar for me.  She still has it.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Healing the body

2. Healing the mind

3. Healing the soul

Jaguar, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am large, black, male jaguar.  I have very sharp eyes and teeth.  Lots of them and I’m very strong.  I’m in Felix – in his muscles, heart, lungs, stomach…

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I feel so strong, supple, and able.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No.

Jaguar, you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?

We co-created each other, but yes.

Jaguar, what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

The ability to transcend normal consciousness. For healing, whatever.

Jaguar, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No!  Felix could make best use of me by calling me in during meditations.  He gets stuck thinking.  I do not do that.  I AM.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Jaguar, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion: 10 I am compassionate toward Felix because I recognize that the deepest and darkest parts of him need compassion.  That which is fearful needs compassion. That which is petty needs compassion. That which is angry needs compassion. That which is joyful needs compassion.  All the things that he pushes away need compassion and I can give it.  I am strong enough to do it.

Wisdom: 10 I see what Felix needs and doesn’t need much better than he can.

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10 It’s a calm, restful state of being.  Completely at ease but ready to move at an instant.

Witnessing: 10

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

The transformations he is working his way through would go faster, easier, and occur more completely.  He would be so present that he’s not even aware of some of the abilities he would gain as a result.  All of the siddhis (psychic powers) come out of me.  He doesn’t even know what he can do, how powerful I am.

Are you at all concerned with Felix misusing your abilities, Jaguar, or not?

With great power comes great responsibility.  And there’s always temptation.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

He’s just becoming awake again after being asleep for thirty years.  He’s had moments of wakefulness.  He’s finding I’m still with him.  All the stuff he was doing thirty years ago and put aside because he was told to – he slept through and learned through his misery.  And now it’s awakening again because his body has been given a death sentence (a diagnosis of metastasized prostate cancer).

What do you think about that, Jaguar?

Better late than never!

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle his/her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Healing the body: He has to heal it in order to handle the energy that I am. Become a little more tenacious toward healing.  Keep focused.  He’s learning.  He’ll make it.

2. Healing the mind: He needs not to think that the thoughts are his.  They are just thoughts.  Like a car.  It’s not his.  It’s just a car.  His thoughts are not him.  They are just thoughts.  Same thing with his feelings.

3. Healing the soul: He is well on the way to doing that.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

1. Work with the magic.

2. Work with the siddhis.

3. Work with dying.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

When he needs strength and courage.   If he becomes me he transforms.  Fears go away. The pain subsides.  He understands.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

We have been together for several lifetimes.

Why have you kept showing up for him?

We’re brothers.  We can’t be separated.

How do you feel about Felix listening to you now?

It’s about time!

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Falling asleep.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

Remember to ask if something is a dream.  Keep practicing lucidity.  Keep practicing awakening from the dream.  Is this a dream?  Is this a dream?

I think this person had this past life memory because

It’s who he is.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

The people are now thoughts.  Sacrifice them!  Let them go!  Let them carry their emotions to me and they will be transformed.

How would he go about doing that, Jaguar?

When he experience the emotions he thinks of as suffering, see me. Feel me, hear me.  And I will take them from him.  Whenever he wishes.  I will be with him for many lifetimes to come.

Do you have anything else you’d like to say to Felix right now?

Don’t forget. Remember.

What have you heard yourself say?

That was a trance!  That was just a trance. It wasn’t like I was talking at all.  This is in me and when I fall asleep I lose a very powerful and impressively powerful part of my existence.  I’m not to do it.  I can’t do what I’m doing without him.  He’s part of so much of who I am and how I’ve been for lifetimes.  I have to awaken to him every lifetime.  I did thirty years ago.  I haven’t been awake to him.  But that’s changing.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

You have a whole lot of ability to do a whole lot of different things.  You better listen to the jaguar and listen to all the spirit world that you have contact with and succeed in working with them.  They are there to transform you and everything else.

What strategies or techniques have you found most helpful?

What resources do you respect on this topic?

Please add your comments below!

This is not a dream about going lucid; it’s a dream about the motivations to go lucid – why a person may want to and what benefits they might receive from doing so.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. How to deal with frustration and turn it into a useful tool.

2. Dealing with Annie.

3. Lucid dreaming more.

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

I was in a university setting attending a conference about medical businesses.  After a long conference of sophisticated people from academia and business we decided to go for a ride along a beautiful mountain ridge with spectacular views like the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We had some difficulty getting up tot he road because there was a rough patch and the car was not made for it.  I was a good enough driver to get us around the rough patch.  We were congratulating ourselves for our ability to understand what was going on in tis medical conference because we could disseminate the information to less sophisticated people with a great deal of ease. When we got to the top of the ridge the road was completely blocked by six large tree stumps.  There are no roots on them.  They are like a six foot tall tree wall. They have been transported there and pt there to block the road. They are very uniform.   It’s quite vivid.  The scenery was all green and then these brown tree stumps straddle the two-lane road.  There is no possibility to go around them. Behind the tree stumps are three older American cars – Pontiacs, Oldmobiles, Mercury types from the late 70’s.  One’s red, one’s white, and one is blue.  I got really frustrated and then I woke up.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

Alan Wallace (Tibetan monk lecturer on lucid dreaming) had said in his lecture to become aware of your location, what you’re doing, who you are (role), and how you are feeling.  I meditated on frustration for the next half hour. Everything that’s frustration in my life came up.  How do I get my relationship with Annie on track?  She lives on a Ridge and works in a university setting.  I talked to her last night.  I have everything available to me to start dealing with my frustration and learn to be more lucid in my dreams and make my life more magical, to see that everything is a dream.  At that point I can start manipulating the dream.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Stumped Again!

These are the characters in the dream…

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

The tree stumps.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Tree Stumps, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

There are six of us. We are wood. We were uprooted.  As we were laying on our sides our root structure was cut off at what would be two feet underground, so it’s flat.  Our tops are about six feet tall and very thick. We are cut off again at the top.  It looks like a crew cut.  We are uniformly lined up so we occupy the width of entire street so no one can get by.  Felix tried to move us and got to the third one, in the middle after he had successfully moved two, that he couldn’t move me.  He tried to physically move me, like the first two.  Then he got a crow bar and tried to leverage me but I wasn’t moving.  He thought about using dynamite but he didn’t know where he could get any.  He tried to move me by pushing me with the car but that didn’t work, so that thoroughly frustrated him.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

We are good-looking, we are strong, we don’t move. When we are put somewhere we stay, like we’re supposed to.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No flexibility.  No give.  No nothing.  We are just here, like government regulations.  Termites, wood rot, old age, death, death, disease. But at this point we are good and solid.

(Character), you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  Tree stumps, what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

The part of him that puts up blocks when he allows himself to get frustrated.

Tree stumps, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

As part of Felix, we wish we could be supportive instead of obstacles.  But we are fairly impersonal.  We do what we do because we are what we are.

Why is this road blocked in the first place?

The people up the road don’t want to share.  There is another way out.  They don’t want through traffic.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 We know what we’re doing.

Compassion:   5 We don’t care one way or the other.  We’re just here.

Wisdom:   8

Acceptance:   9 We’re here just because we’re here.  Our self-acceptance is high.

Inner Peace:   9

Witnessing: 10 We can sit and watch it all go by all the time!

Tree stumps, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

Compassion was low. We don’t care much about anything.  If we were a ten we would be more flexible, more able to move and creative. We could become an arch or bridge or gateway or the interior of something.  We could become whatever form we wanted to be really compassionately helpful. We could turn ourselves into wings the one could put on the side of the car so they could fly.  We could help Felix.

Weren’t you put there because you weren’t compassionate and because you had a firm structure?

Yes.  We were put there as an obstacle.   We were put there because of our lack of compassion.  When we think about it, our acceptance is very low because of what we are doing.  It’s not true that we were high in acceptance. We are at 2’s or 1’s.

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He could do lucid dreaming.  That would propel him down the road of understanding what he wants to do really quickly.  It’s a very creative way of dealing with what is in front of him.  He would know the illusory nature of existence and could experiment with it on all forms and levels.  It would all be play, like being surrounded by fifth graders.  (I used to teach fifth grade.)  He’d have so much fun!

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

I would encourage him to become more and more creative in everything he does.  That is the hallmark of being alive and staying alive.  That helps others to do the same – to stay alive.  When it comes time for them to die it helps them to do so with constant awareness and to go into their next life with love and compassion.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Frustration: With awareness!  With lucidity!  He would be able to be highly creative very quickly now, in real time.  The frustrations would be tools to help him become more creative rather than be perceived as obstacles.

2. Annie: by doing the above – it’s the nature of what she does – if Felix is creative she will be more drawn to him.

3. More lucid dreaming: As he becomes more lucid the access to creativity becomes more pronounced and becomes a circle that feeds on itself.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

They would stay the same.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Whenever he’s dreaming to recognize that frustration is a key to creativity.  Also when he’s awake.  Things then change!  His perspective changes, that of those who he is talking to changes. Then he can help people more!

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

Because we represent those frustrations he hasn’t figured out how to deal with. We are an opportunity for him to address these issues.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Fall asleep! Forget that everything is a dream!  When he gets frustrated, angry, and hurt to draw back in, pull back in, when the opposite is what he needs to do.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

He should instead take several deep breaths, relax as much as possible, and let us clear the road by ourselves. We’ll move out of the way.

What about those red, white, and blue cars, tree stumps?

They have their keys in the ignition!  They won’t be that much of an obstacle. They are vehicles!  They will carry him where he needs to go!  He needs to go to a patriotic place.  He needs a larger vision of what it means to be an American.  It’s been built too much around economics.  It’s a further barrier that he needs to address.  The medical conference was about sophistication of finance and how Felix was self-congratulatory about how much he knows.  It’s where Felix was most comfortable with his expertise.

I think this person had this dream because

he is in the position of opening up relatively quickly to new ideas and more aware of blocks to awareness.  We are just another thing in the road that needs to be addressed.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

The residents down the road remind Felix of Jupiter Island, Florida, an enclave of very rich people who don’t want a road running all the way through it.  It’s well guarded.  You only see vegetation or a driveway or mailbox.  You rarely see a house.  We are tools of the people down the road. They represent a part of Felix that has used his awareness of economics to defend the system.  That lets him live on “Jupiter Island.”  But now that doesn’t seem to be working for him.  It’s now blocking him toward more creativity.

What have you heard yourself say?

It rings very true.  I have used my economic knowledge as a tool to think like these people to hang out here.  But once you’ve gotten there, so what?  It’s not creative.  You can just get more stuff.  And stuff is stuff. Whereas the real creativity is within.  The real healing of oneself and others is within and doesn’t have much to do with that stuff.  I’ve got to unblock myself and that can help others as well.  It has to do with becoming more aware. Then things emerge.  People tell me I’m an inspiration.  I have more support than I realize.  I am just not aware of it.  It’s pretty humbling (cries). I just overlooked this.

Tree stumps, what are Felix’s humble feelings and his tears about?

Recognition that he’s just ignored and not appreciated and not taken into account how much love and kindness there has been in his life.

If he had, what difference would that have made?

He would have had a much richer interior life and been much more aware of what was going on around him.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Tree Stump: Treat Felix with loving kindness.  He responds to that so very, very strongly.  He needs to treat himself that way much more than he does.  He tends to be much harder on himself than he needs to.  Just to treat himself as a human being.  It’s something he has to work on a lot.

Do you have anything else you want to say to Felix right now, Tree Stump?

Remember you’re loved!

If you had terminal cancer, what would your concerns be?  How about learning to look at life and death from the perspective of spirit?  Live life as a dance! That’s what this fellow is learning to do, already making plans for his next incarnation…In this interview there are practical suggestions about how to put your life into a context that will free and awaken you.

Anvil and Hammer

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. How do I create magic in my life and other people’s lives?

2. How do I dance with people?

3. What’s the best way or ways to serve.

Imagine you are on your deathbed, looking back over your life.  Imagine all your dreams have come true.  What do you see when you look back?  How has your life unfolded?

Oct 12, 2009, in my 62nd year, was the big wakeup call when I became alive.  Maharaji was teaching me everything.  The initial recovery took a few months, the intermediate phase took longer.  I spent some time in India at Maharaji’s ashram where I got the message of what I needed to do for the rest of my life.  It became a dance at that point, an analogy I got from my dance instructor mother.  I learned to treat everyone I meet as a dance partner.  From that point on I danced through the rest of my life.  I gave up a lot of the constrictions I had when I was married.  I became an accomplished yogi that helped others learn how to listen to and follow their own inner path.  This continued for many, many years, accomplishing the things Maharaji wanted me to accomplish.

Now imagine that you are on your deathbed, looking back over your life.  Imagine that NONE of your dreams have come true; in fact, all of your fears have come to pass.  What happened?  How do you feel?

I follow what everybody else tells me to do.  I do what doctors tell me.  I did the chemo, I went to the Prostate support meetings.  I got involved in drug trials, testing new drugs.  The more I did it the fewer people were around me because I didn’t have the energy to be in their lives.  I ended up going into nursing homes because I couldn’t take care of myself.  The money I had got drained away and I died a pauper in pain.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Black and red!

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

An anvil and hammer.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Anvil and hammer, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am a standard large anvil, solid steel, weighing at least 500 pounds with a point on one end.  I am almost immovable, powerfully built.  As the hammer, I am good and solid.  I work with my partner to bend things that are very hard, like steel.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

We are dependable, strong. We know what we’re doing. We can bend and shape things.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

We have crappy social lives!  No one comes because they want to hang out with us.  They are only around us because we are tools. We are not desired in and of ourselves.  People don’t quite understand us. They think that if you hit an anvil hard enough it will break. But the hammer is what breaks, not the anvil, if something is going to break.

(Character), you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

Base chakra stuff. Things he’s used for so long.  However, it’s more than that.  It’s any of the chakras.  He knows how to bend things.  He knows how to make things move.

Hammer and Anvil, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No, we’re happy with who we are.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion:   5 It’s all bent to the goal, which is more important than compassion.  You just do it.

Wisdom:   5 I don’t learn from the mistakes of others.

Acceptance:   5

Inner Peace:   5

Witnessing: 10

Hammer and Anvil, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

Compassion: He would use us much more judiciously.  If all you have is a hammer and an anvil, then every problem is a horseshoe…However, what he forgets  is that the hammer can beat out gold as well as dross, and shape it finely.

Wisdom: Look at other people! See how they are screwing up and learn from that!

Acceptance: Accept that you can be different and be wise about it!

Inner Peace: Doing the art of goldsmithing rather than working on raw iron!  It would be more gentle and effective!

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

The level of subtlety he would require would be quite pronounced.  Learning the dance is so appropriate for him, dancing with his own self, with the universe, with others.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

He’s doing them.  He’s changing all the time!

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his/her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Creating magic: Keep dancing!

2. Regarding dancing with more people, keep your mouth shut, don’t think about people, feel them.  When that feeling is prominent, move with the steps that need to be taken.

3. Service:  Turn it over to Maharaji!  It’s his perogative. Be more open to that.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?

The same ones.  They are the key to a rich and fulfilling life.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

All the time!  There is always a more open and loving way to do things!

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

We are an important part of who he is.  We are part of his soul.

What do you think about this person’s nightmare?

It gives his fears a reality that he needs to accept and then choose not to do it.  It can be a choice rather than a destiny.

What do you think about this person’s good dream?

It’s also a choice, not a destiny.

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

Falling asleep!

What would you recommend that they do about that?

Stay awake!!!!   Open your heart.  It provides the right answers.

I think this person created this nightmare because….

He created it.  He has to recognize that it’s a choice that he has to make.

What have you heard yourself say?

Bending and turning things; the hammer and anvil have given me a long time perspective.  The decisions I’m making now will affect a lot of people for a long time. That was a surprise to me because my time frame has been so attenuated since I got my cancer diagnosis.  It’s been hard for me to see that the decisions I’m making now have long term implications.  In a past life I was the wife of a samuri in the height of that period in Japan.  I was good with money and kept my husband financially secure.  I was a respected member of the society with money and influence.  I also had a son, who I have met this lifetime.  I spent a bunch of years toward the end of my life as a Zen nun.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your deepest, truest inner self, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Get out of thinking in terms of one lifetime.  See the big picture.  Go back to understanding that your choices are not for next week, month, or year, but how what you does can have an impact on your soul and future incarnations.

I was in some sort of building where a lot of people were sleeping.  I would say it might be something like a hostel.  Then I was riding with someone – a woman? There were others in the car, I think.  She took it straight up the top of a tall building.  At the top I knew it was too vertical to land on top of the building. Instead it arced over and was headed back toward the ground.  I was thinking, “Thanks for a great life” when I woke up.

So Car, how do you feel about how this dream went?

Car: Terrible!

I suppose you would change it so that you didn’t get driven up the building.

Car: Definitely!

Well then, I guess I need to talk to the lady that was driving… Lady, why did you drive the car up the side of the building?

Lady: Why not?  It’s a dream, isn’t it?

So are you saying that in the dream you knew it was a dream and you weren’t afraid because you knew no one would die?

Lady: Yes!

So what do you think Joseph should have done about you driving the car up the side of the building?

Lady: Relax and enjoy the ride!  Instead of waking up he could have used it to go lucid, for instance!!!

Any recommendations about waking life?

Lady: Just the same:  Relax and enjoy the ride.  Don’t get stressed out or worried about anything.  Who you really are can’t die.  Use everything to help you wake up more!

Good advice.  OK.  Thank you, Lady!

From the point of view of this self-aspect, rather than emphasizing dream lucidity per se, lucid dreaming is about learning to wake up in whatever state we are in.  While our waking identity clearly differentiates between dreaming and waking states most of the time, that distinction seems less important to many self-aspects.