TriumphantGeorge Compendium - Part 31

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/r/Oneirosophy Highlights

SIDEBAR: OVERVIEW

Oneirosophy means "dream wisdom"

This is a place for idealists to further their lucidity by discussing techniques and anything else related to idealism. Techniques may include but are not limited to: contemplation of skillful ideas, meditation, magick, yoga, and lucid dreaming. Sympathetic individuals are encouraged to post their own ideas and practices to prompt discussion.

The foundations of Oneirosophy are:

• Lucidity - A state similar to gnosis or satori where one regains consciousness of the illusory nature of waking reality, just as one becomes lucid in a dream.
• Idealism - All of waking reality is a mental structure, a dreamed reality.

Matter is an idea in the mind.

POST: Oneirosophy is not "the secret"

7Kek7: ts not a magic genie lamp that will grant you all of your material desires
I disagree, when I want it to be, it has literally been a genie lamp. Changing one's perspective on experience and letting go of materialism is great. But the real power is in then shaping that experience to one's desires.

Giello: Oneirosophy provides a model through which one might understand how or why the Law of Attraction/"The Secret" works. At least, that's how I see it.

POST: Some quotes from Tibetan Buddhist masters (By dharmadhatu)

When you start to dream, the dream begins as a thought, like one you would have in the daytime. But you’re asleep, so the thought intensifies and becomes something like talk or gossip, and then the gossip intensifies or solidifies into images, and then you really think that you’re seeing people, seeing places, going places, and so on. And that is how it works with conventional appearances as well.
-- Thrangu Rinpoche

At first when you pass into the dream state and images arise, you may not remember where they came from. Your awareness, however, will naturally develop until you will be able to see that you are dreaming. When you watch very carefully, you will be able to see the whole creation and evolution of the dream.
Through this practice, we can see another dimension of experience, and have access to another way of knowing how experience arises. This is important, for when we know this, we can shape our lives. The images which emerge from dream awareness will intensify our waking awareness, allowing us to see more of the nature of existence.
With continuing practice, we see less and less difference between the waking and the dream state. Our experiences in waking life become more vivid and varied, the result of a lighter and more refined awareness. We are no longer bound by conventional conceptions of time, space, [force], and energy. Within this vaster perspective we may also find that the so-called supernatural feats and legends of the great yogis and masters are not myths or miracles. When the consciousness unites the various poles of experience and moves beyond the limits of conventional thought, psychic powers or abilities are actually natural.
-- Tarthang Tulku

POST: Life not feeling real.

A1: Please try cloudbursting. Look at the sky for a few small clouds in a group. Do not tell anyone. Then pick a cloud that you want to disappear. It will. This and other reality-bending experiments will prove to you that your mind is connected to, or maybe the same as, reality itself.

cam you make clouds grow darker? Well over time

dreameraxelos: You can do whatever you want! Everything is part of your dream, so you alone have control. However, some things may seem from your perspective to be more difficult, at least at first. That's why I suggest beginning with making clouds disappear first. It's easier for your mind to accept. Once you have experience with making clouds disappear, you can move on to making them grow, move, appear, darken, lighten, etc.

POST: Contemplation upon the Gospel of Thomas (By aconfusedseeker)

Hello, friends. This sub needs more discussion to get the wheels of contemplation going. Only through contemplation can we progress in the ideas presented to us by oneirosophy. As it would happen, I've stumlbed once again upon Gnosticisim during the uneventful hours in work, and I got to re-read the Gospel of Thomas in multiple translations. However, this time I tried to apply the idea of oneirosophy and subjective idealism upon the riddle of words that Jesus left us in this amazing Gospel. Particularly, I'll nitpick a few passages that struck me as possibly resonant with the dream reality. For this, I'll use the Lambdin translation

(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

This really struck a chord with me. When I first delved into non-dualism and oneirosophy, I was grasping at straws when it came to shattering the illusion of this reality. The materialist in me wept as the dogma of Christianity I have lived my not-so-long life and materialism based thinking slowly unraveled to the nature of our dream reality. I was a confused seeker that sought (as my name implies) and as I read more and more I became troubled. Now I am not so much, as I slowly lose fear of death, hell, and nothingness after death. I am astonished. The last words imply that just like subjective idealism proposes, we - every single on of us - could indeed rule over all (mayhap through Solipsism?) in the current reality. What do you think?

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

The idea that indeed when you outsource the you that you have forgotten you are to somewhere else, you lose control of the dream. The kingdom of the father (Awareness, One) is within you, for you are the aspect of that Awareness that dreams all of realities in all of the time. As within, so without. Non-dualism. If you will not know yourself (as the awareness rather than the dream character), you will be trapped in the idea of materialism and self-inflict upon yourself misery as something that can't be changed, something that is outside of your control (poverty), but once you have known, you will stop being trapped in that (stop being the poverty and as such the source of it).

(4) Jesus said, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same."

This brings forth the idea that though we can see a seven old day child, the awareness behind that dream character is so much more than what is presented to us, and as such is presented also an idea of reconciliation into the One, for we come from the One.

(5) Jesus said "Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."
(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."
(36) Jesus said, "Do not be concerned from morning until evening and from evening until morning about what you will wear."

Recognize the dream for what it is - a dream, and nothing will be hidden from you, because you as awareness exist out side of time and space (you stand at the beginning and the end), and as such can mold the reality according to your will (manifest what you will). Thus, stop worrying.

(24) His disciples said to him, "Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it." He said to them, "Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness."
(42) Jesus said, "Become passers-by."

Become passers-by. Detach yourself from the dream character you experience, even a bit, and observe the dream world for what it is.

(48) Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move Away,' and it will move away."

Perhaps this could be given the context of reconciliation between the dream character and the dreamer (awareness). When if you do, you will be able to change the dream (move mountains).

(77) Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

Maybe Jesus fancied himself a solipsist? :-)

Etc. There are many more passages that could be given the explanation of oneirosophy, while many seem incompatible with the ideas of it. I would love to hear your opinions. 'Tis but one perspective/way of experience of many, but perhaps we can glean something useful to us from it? Put your own spin on it, should you desire. We can learn much from each other.

...

What's the point of ruling over the All?

The better question I think is, "What's not the point?" Try to contemplate on this a bit more before reading on. In the end, you have to come to your own conclusions to any question you ever experience.

Truly, for everyone there will be many points as to why, but I want you to consider that once you achieve that state it is all the points. When you rule over the All, you in essence become the All (or rather, return to it), and every reason for becoming it. Unbound, limitless, like "(77) Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." "

For example for you personally by your previous thread on this sub, I would say that it would mean liberation from the assumption of being created by the position of planets and instead becoming the creator of planets, so to speak. A flip in perspective and being. Reconciliation with your true self.

One could also assume that the whole proclamation Jesus made was an Ego trap. It is the Ego that drives you to power, which this phrase implies to promise. But when you strengthen the Ego, you solidify the dream character you play and thus solidify the dream instead of loosing it to achieve that state of true self.

POST: An Interesting Thought (By CriticalMission)

When we are awake, we know that we are due to internal and "external" factors. First off, our mind is at a heightened state of awareness, as we can logically reason about many complex ideas. Additionally, we "feel" that our environment is stable. Everything is as we remember it, in that we have an innate understanding that we are living in the world we've always know. On top of this, we have certain tests that we can conduct on our environment. These tests can be similar to those tests that lucid dreamers use, known as reality checks. For example, if we look at a clock, look away, and then look back we know that the time will either be the same or be different by one minute. Yet when we are dreaming, the clock will often show vastly different results each time that we look at it.

But what if we have it all wrong? What if our dreams are a more true reality than the physical? Think about it. When we are awake we are very limited by the world around us. There are rules that we must follow. It's almost like we're trapped in a certain state of existence. Yet when we're dreaming we become free; anything is possible. And the more we dream lucidly, the more stable our dream environment becomes. Eventually one can lucid dream so much that one can begin to blur the boundaries between one's dreams and reality. The more powerful a dreamer becomes, the more "real" their dreams seem to be. Some can even experience dreams that "feel" more real than reality itself.

When we dream we have the power to control everything with our minds. Does this not seem like the most powerful state of awareness anyone can be in? The ancient stories of enlightened thinkers discuss beings who can manipulate physical reality with their thoughts. For example, Jesus of Nazareth was said to have brought someone back from the dead, cured the terminally ill, and gave a blind man the gift of sight. Whether you believe that these events actually occurred, or if they are possible is beyond the point. What matters here is the fact that someone capable of these acts would be considered to exist within a higher state of existence.

When we dream, we exist within this higher state of existence. We are not bound by the laws of physics. We can fly, teleport, shape shift, manifest anything instantly, we're virtually limitless. We can still hear, taste, and touch. We can see and smell. We become untethered.

I once had a dream of myself just standing in the street. I was across from the home I grew up in. The crazy part is, everything was indistinguishable from my waking state. One moment I was lying in bed, eyes closed, everything black. The next, it felt as if my eyes were immediately opened. I could see the grass and the road. The mailboxes, the sky, the clouds; all from the point of view of … myself. I looked down and saw my palms. I turned them up and down to acknowledge I was truly there. And then I woke up. Back into the darkness.

Dreams are often not realized to be such until we awaken. But what if physical reality constitutes the real dream? We wouldn't know it until we wake up. Yet oftentimes when we sleep, we are not conscious. What if this is by design? We're not meant to be conscious when we dream because then we would wake up. We would realize that this physical reality is a construct build around us, not our true reality. We would realize that this world is more like a game than anything else. That the limitations around us are simply obstacles to be surpassed. That we play this game with ourselves because there's nothing else to do but to expand our consciousness, and this a means to that end. An organized, ordered world where we can think and interact in such a way that allows us to advance our understanding of the world around us.

May your dreams set you free.

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Appendix: Relevant Terminology

Philosophy

Philosophy (from Ancient Greek philosophía lit. 'love of wisdom') is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, knowledge, mind, reason, language, and value. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called the theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry.
Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence, the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being. An influential division is between particulars and universals. Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color red. Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore the concepts of space, time, and change, and their connection to causality and the laws of nature. Other topics include how mind and matter are related, whether everything in the world is predetermined, and whether there is free will.
Metaphysicians use various methods to conduct their inquiry. Traditionally, they rely on rational intuitions and abstract reasoning but have recently included empirical approaches associated with scientific theories. Due to the abstract nature of its topic, metaphysics has received criticisms questioning the reliability of its methods and the meaningfulness of its theories. Metaphysics is relevant to many fields of inquiry that often implicitly rely on metaphysical concepts and assumptions.

The beginning of Aristotle's Metaphysics, one of the foundational texts of the discipline

Nondualism

Nondualism, also called nonduality and sometimes monism, is a polyvalent term originating in Indian philosophy and religion, where it is used in various, related contemplative philosophies which aim to negate dualistic thinking or conceptual proliferation (prapanca) and thereby realize nondual awareness, 'that which is beyond discursive thinking', a state of consciousness described in contemplative traditions as a background field of unified, immutable awareness that exists prior to conceptual thought.
The English term "nonduality" is derived from the Sanskrit Hindu term "advaita" (अद्वैत), "not-two" or "one without a second," meaning that only Brahman, 'the one', is ultimately real while 'the world', or the multiplicity of thought-constructs, 'the second', is not fully real; and from the Buddhist term advaya, which is also literally translated as "not two" and has various applications, including the Madhyamaka negation of thinking in opposites such as ordinary, conventional truth versus ultimate truth, and in Yogachara the deconstruction of the "apprehension of sensory objects as separate from the perceiving consciousness."
A perennialist view posits that nondual awareness, despite fundamental differences in the explanatory frameworks, is a common essence in various religious traditions. According to this view, nondual awareness is not only paradigmatic for Hindu advaita-traditions including Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, and Buddhist advaya-traditions including Yogachara, Madhyamaka, Zen and Dzogchen, but can also be found in Taoist philosophy, and in Western philosophy, Christian mysticism, and Sufism.
Nondualism is also used to refer to the satsang movement, also called neo-advaita, for which nonduality is a central tenet, emphasizing sudden awakening or insight. The term may also refer to monism and nonplurality, the idea of a unitive essence behind the multiplicity of distinct entities. Related definitions include interconnectedness interdependence, and holism or 'wholism', the idea that "all the things "in" the world are not really distinct from each other but together constitute some integral whole." Further definitions are the rejection of thinking in binary opposites such as the mind–body dualism, while "nondualism" is also used as a synonym for mysticism, mystical experience, and spirituality.

Transcendental Idealism

Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). By transcendental (a term that deserves special clarification) Kant means that his philosophical approach to knowledge transcends mere consideration of sensory evidence and requires an understanding of the mind's innate modes of processing that sensory evidence.
In the "Transcendental Aesthetic" section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant outlines how space and time are pure forms of human intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility. Space and time do not have an existence "outside" of us, but are the "subjective" forms of our sensibility and hence the necessary a priori conditions under which the objects we encounter in our experience can appear to us at all. Kant describes time and space not only as "empirically real" but transcendentally ideal.
Kant argues that the conscious subject recognizes the objects of experience not as they are in themselves, but only the way they appear to us under the conditions of our sensibility. This fits his model of perception outlined at the outset of the "Transcendental Aesthetic" by which he distinguishes the empirical reality of appearances studied by the empirical sciences from the noumenal reality of things as they are in themselves, independent of empirical observation. Thus Kant's doctrine restricts the scope of our cognition to appearances given to our sensibility and denies that we can possess cognition of things as they are in themselves, i.e. things as they are independently of how we experience them through our cognitive faculties.

Perennial philosophy

The perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a school of thought in philosophy and spirituality that posits that the recurrence of common themes across world religions illuminates universal truths about the nature of reality, humanity, ethics, and consciousness. Some perennialists emphasize common themes in religious experiences and mystical traditions across time and cultures; others argue that religious traditions share a single metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine have developed.
Developments in the 19th and 20th centuries integrated Eastern religions and universalism—the idea that all religions, underneath apparent differences, point to the same Truth. In the early 19th century, the Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism—this inspired the Unitarians, who proselytized among Indian elites. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Theosophical Society further popularized universalism in the Western world and Western colonies. In the 20th century, this form of universalist perennialism was further popularized by Aldous Huxley and his book The Perennial Philosophy, which was inspired by Neo-Vedanta. Huxley and some other perennialists grounded their point of view in the commonalities of mystical experience and generally accepted religious syncretism.

One of two known editions of the title page of William Blake's All Religions are One, published in 1795

Skepticism

Skepticism (US) or scepticism (UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the person doubts that these claims are accurate. In such cases, skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This attitude is often motivated by the impression that the available evidence is insufficient to support the claim. Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology.

Solipsism

Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ ⓘ SOLL-ip-siz-əm; from Latin solus 'alone' and ipse 'self') is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
There are varying degrees of solipsism that parallel the varying degrees of skepticism:

• Metaphysical solipsism is a variety of solipsism based on a philosophy of subjective idealism. Metaphysical solipsists maintain that the self is the only existing reality and that all other realities, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, having no independent existence. There are several versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other people are conscious, but their experiences are simply not present.
• Epistemological solipsism is the variety of idealism according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of the solipsistic philosopher can be known. The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false. Further, one cannot also be certain as to what extent the external world exists independently of one's mind. For instance, it may be that a God-like being controls the sensations received by the mind, making it appear as if there is an external world when most of it (excluding the God-like being and oneself) is false. However, the point remains that epistemological solipsists consider this an "unresolvable" question.
• Methodological solipsism is an agnostic variant of solipsism. It exists in opposition to the strict epistemological requirements for "knowledge" (e.g. the requirement that knowledge must be certain). It still entertains the points that any induction is fallible. Methodological solipsism sometimes goes even further to say that even what we perceive as the brain is actually part of the external world, for it is only through our senses that we can see or feel the mind. Only the existence of thoughts is known for certain. Methodological solipsists do not intend to conclude that the stronger forms of solipsism are actually true. They simply emphasize that justifications of an external world must be founded on indisputable facts about their own consciousness. The methodological solipsist believes that subjective impressions (empiricism) or innate knowledge (rationalism) are the sole possible or proper starting point for philosophical construction. Often methodological solipsism is not held as a belief system, but rather used as a thought experiment to assist skepticism (e.g. René Descartes' Cartesian skepticism).

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.