Pila Mulligan: greetings

  Storm Nordwind imagines the teeth of a road snarling ;)

  Pila Mulligan: I regret having been unable to attend the previous two sessions, Maxine

  Maxine Walden: hi, Myna

  Myna Maven: Hello, Maxine. Hello, all.

  Pila Mulligan: hi Storm, hi Myna

  Storm Nordwind: Hi Pila

  Maxine Walden: oh, Pila, glad to have you, we will review very briefly the main themes and then try to look     for at dreams and dreaming

  Maxine Walden: look more at dreams and dreaming

  Pila Mulligan: thanks

  Caledonia Heron: hi Maxine ::)

  Maxine Walden: Hey Cal, nice to see you

  Lia Rikugun: hello

  Caledonia Heron: same here :)

  Maxine Walden: and Lia, hello

  Caledonia Heron: would you like to meet here or in the other room at the far end of the Cafe?

  Maxine Walden: ah, trying to think.

  Maxine Walden: We would likely have a quieter time in the other room

  Caledonia Heron: yes, some groups have taken to meeting in there to reduce disruptions, etc

  Caledonia Heron: as you prefer :)

  Alfred Kelberry: hey!

  Maxine Walden: maybe if we wait another minute or two to see if others join us.

  Maxine Walden: hi, Alfred

  Maxine Walden: hi Fefonz

  Alfred Kelberry: hi, maxine the dream expert :)

  Fefonz Quan: Hello for the Dream Team :)

  Storm Nordwind: The 'other room' by the way, is called "The Diner"

  Storm Nordwind: Where we are now is called "The Lounge"

  Alfred Kelberry: ah, good to know, storm. thanks :)

  Storm Nordwind: And guess where "The Bar" is ;)

  Pila Mulligan: by the entrance

  Alfred Kelberry: i hope we'll get to dine your "as" workshop on friday :)

  Caledonia Heron: lol, I will guess :)

  Alfred Kelberry: pila gets a cookie - the winner! :)

  Alfred Kelberry: here is fine by me

  Alfred Kelberry: hey, tr!

  Alfred Kelberry: bleep :P

  Storm Nordwind: We're already in the Lounge. You might want to try the Diner to see what's it's like               sometime

  TR Amat: Hi Alfred

  Alfred Kelberry: what's the topic today?

  Maxine Walden: Yes, I would suggest we try to diner, which may give a nice atmosphere

  Maxine Walden: I'll mention the topic when we are there.

  TR Amat: Taking over the world using philosophy?

  Alfred Kelberry: alright

  Alfred Kelberry: let's take a walk :)

  Alfred Kelberry: grab the donuts! :)

  Myna Maven: :)

  Maxine Walden: thanks, everyone for coming

  Maxine Walden: Just to briefly review

  TR Amat: Need some Eccels Cakes :)

  Maxine Walden: we have been considering the dream

  Alfred Kelberry: has anyone dreamed of maxine yet? :)

  Maxine Walden: as organizer, messenger, problem solver

  Maxine Walden: and at the interface between the conscious and the unconscious

  Maxine Walden: regions of the psyche.

  Alfred Kelberry: membrane, yes

  Maxine Walden: Last time I tried to present a dream, but

  Maxine Walden: I feel that it was very dense and difficult to fully think and talk about

  Maxine Walden: here in a workshop way

  Maxine Walden: so I thought it might be nice to just begin today's talk with a very short dream

  TR Amat: I find dreams vary. A lot. :)

  Maxine Walden: which we could think about

  Maxine Walden: and how context and so influences the 'meaning' of the dream

  Alfred Kelberry: so.. guess no one has dreamed of maxine here yet :/

  Maxine Walden: how about you, Alf?

  TR Amat: I'm so bad with names that I could have but just been unable to name her. :)

  Alfred Kelberry: i've never seen an sl related dream

  Maxine Walden: It would be interesting if I came into someone's dream, but I will start with a small dream I had just last night

  Alfred Kelberry: guess i'm not here enough :)

  TR Amat: I've had far too many SL related dreams.

  Alfred Kelberry: haha, tr :)

  Alfred Kelberry: tell us, please

  Storm Nordwind mentions that everyone can change their pose by touching their chair (cycle of 6 poses)

  Maxine Walden: This dream bit seemed to be embedded in the midst

  Maxine Walden: of other dream material which I could ot recall on waking

  Alfred Kelberry: wow, 6! thanks, storm

  Maxine Walden: The bit is: that I had small lamps in the back of my car

  Maxine Walden: and was wondering whether to take them out or not,

  Maxine Walden: aware in the dream that I did not have

  Maxine Walden: good spaces or locations for those lamps

  Maxine Walden: and might just have to put them back

  Alfred Kelberry: no menu, storm :/

  Maxine Walden: in the car. (end of dream bit)

  Maxine Walden: My thought about the dream:

  Maxine Walden: I had been recently wondering about sources of internal

  Maxine Walden: illumination, those things that inspire and inform us

  Pila Mulligan: :)

  Maxine Walden: such as the quiet products of learning from experience

  Maxine Walden: and the experience of trusted friends

  Maxine Walden: vs the inspiration held in highly praised

  Maxine Walden: books and writings of renowned teachers.

  Maxine Walden: So the dream may suggest that it is valuable

  Maxine Walden: to assess what are the smaller sources of illumination

  Maxine Walden: (small lamps in the back seat)

  Maxine Walden: which may offer more clutter than help.

  Maxine Walden: And might not warrant being unpacked at all.

  Maxine Walden: For me the best illumination/inspiration

  Maxine Walden: comes from my own quiet experience in inner pondering

  Alfred Kelberry: is it your own interpretation or it's based on some dream theory?

  Maxine Walden: and those of trusted friends

  Maxine Walden: this is my own interpretation, Alf,

  Alfred Kelberry: ok

  Maxine Walden: I really feel that only the dreamer can really interpret his/her dream

  Maxine Walden: because only the dreamer can ponder and find meaning from recent experience

  Alfred Kelberry: yes, he's the one to know the context :)

  Maxine Walden: in the symbols of the dram

  Storm Nordwind: I think that the dreamer can recognise whether someone else's interpretation of their dream is correct or not

  Maxine Walden: Right, and just one more thought from the dream

  Alfred Kelberry: but then, it reminds me of astrology or taro reading of some sort :)

  Maxine Walden: an overarching thought is to be discerning about sources of inspiration

  Maxine Walden: which is not too surprising a concern for those of us who are searching all the time in our learning and growth

  Pila Mulligan: and the individual interprets waking their expereince alone, as well

  Pila Mulligan: their wking expereince *

  Maxine Walden: yes, Storm, and Pila agree about the sense of resonance about interpretations of the dream;

  Maxine Walden: it just seem to fit or not, the interpretation offered by self or other

  Pila Mulligan: the reduction of thoughts to images seems to be a dream function

  Pila Mulligan: or expansion, perhaps (vs. reduction)

  Maxine Walden: We could pause here, or I could mention a couple of added things about the dreaming process

  Maxine Walden: yes, Pila, that is just what I was going to think aloud about, the dreaming function

  Fefonz Quan: intersting idea, Pila

  Pila Mulligan: please continue :)

  Maxine Walden: I have found it useful to consider the dreaming process, which for me means

  Maxine Walden: the transformation of sensory (visual, auditory, usually) data

  Maxine Walden: into symbolic, thinkable bits, often into metaphor, symbolic pictures and the like

  Maxine Walden: but often the dream may be a voice, word, sound which carries potential meaning as well.       Potential because it has to be thought about for meaning to be 'seen'

  Pila Mulligan: as in 'a picture is worth a thousand words' :)

  Maxine Walden: We poke as well about the nite mare kind of dream

  Maxine Walden: intense, frightening

  Maxine Walden: awakening the dreamer at times

  Maxine Walden: this kind of 'dream' in which the raw 'stuff' cannot be transformed

  Maxine Walden: into a symbol, but the 'stuff' breaks through the barrier

  Maxine Walden: between the 'raw' unconscios and the dream image which comes closer to consciousness

  Banana Nut Muffin whispers: Hmmm, a fresh baked muffin!

  Maxine Walden: There seems to be a barrier, at the boundary

  Maxine Walden: between the conscious and unconscious mind

  Maxine Walden: and the dreaming function, the transforming function may reside at that boundary

  Pila Mulligan: Meher Baba wrote that people come closest to god at the boundary between waking and sleeping

  Maxine Walden: allowing 'stuff' to come closer to consciousness via the dream

  Maxine Walden: interesting, Pila, similar thoughts

  Alfred Kelberry: pila, eh, that's deep :)

  Fefonz Quan: closer to which god ? :)

  Maxine Walden: just what comprises the dream function is hard to know, at least for me, but

  Fefonz Quan: the dream god?

  Pila Mulligan: yes, an element of the cooment, Fefonz :)

  Maxine Walden: it seems to me to be very similar

  Maxine Walden: to the function that a mother plays

  Alfred Kelberry: i say we hack the transformation block to find out how it works and then assemble a               decryptor :)

  Maxine Walden: in sorting out the distress of her fussy baby

  TR Amat: A transdence/transcendent being of some sort?

  Alfred Kelberry: oh, what's that? half an hour?

  Maxine Walden: Maybe dreams with meaning only occur for those who have had the experience of an empathic   mothering presence

  Fefonz Quan: that can be easily checked, isn't it maxine?

  Pila Mulligan: hmm, could that limitation mean orphans lack dreams?

  Maxine Walden: Anyway, that summarizes what I had thought to bring today

  TR Amat: I've has dreams that seemed precognitive, in a deja vu sense...

  Pila Mulligan: or menaingful dreams?

  TR Amat: had*

  Maxine Walden: think most of us even orphans have had empathic human contact, but I have know

  Maxine Walden: known folks which traumatic and deprived lives who indeed do not recall dreams

  Storm Nordwind is Offline

  Maxine Walden: and we are talking about remembered dreams here

  Maxine Walden: even tho we likely dream all the time

  TR Amat: Just because you don't recall them doesn't mean you don't have dreams.

  Maxine Walden: I really agree, TR, that we really dream all the time...

  Myna Maven: Or have individuals with distressed backgrounds cut off access and memory of dreams because it   is safer for them.

  Lia Rikugun: can you exercise recalling them?

  Maxine Walden: I am suggesting that the remembered dream is similar to the mothered experience

  TR Amat: Traumatic lives may teach to awaken as immediately as possible, so as to be ready to defend           yourself, and my experience suggest rapid wakening tends to interfere with later recall of dreams.

  Pila Mulligan: I may contradict your theory, Maxine -- I rememebr dreams easily and had a gnarly sot as a       mother

  Maxine Walden: yes, Myna, it may be 'safer' to not recall dreams in certain circumstances

  Maxine Walden: Pila, great to disagree

  Pila Mulligan: :)

  TR Amat: I don't think the relationship is as simple as you suggest, Maxine, though there is likey some             connection.

  Maxine Walden: let us know your experience

  Myna Maven: And I should have said "some" individuals, not meaning an absolute.

  Fefonz Quan: ki don't quite follow your suggestion maxine, there are many kind of dreams, bizarre more or       less, what do they ahve to do with mother's empathy?

  TR Amat: likely*

  Maxine Walden: this is what a workshop is for

  Alfred Kelberry: i don't recall my dreams cause i don't pay much attention to them

  Lia Rikugun: i think thats the same fo rme

  Maxine Walden: Yes, I may not have organized my understanding of these

  TR Amat: Dreams can be highly entertaining to recall. :)

  Maxine Walden: various kinds of dreams very well today

  Maxine Walden: because I agree that there are

  Fefonz Quan: Yes TR :)

  Alfred Kelberry: tr, it would be entertaining if i could program them :)

  Maxine Walden: many types of dreams: chaotic, nite mares, and quietly communicatie

  Maxine Walden: ones, and it is the quietly communicative that I am suggesting

  TR Amat: I'm not sure learning Lucid Dreaming is altogether healthy.

  Pila Mulligan: I entirely agree that dreams help in sorting out distress and contraqdictions

  Maxine Walden: may resemble a mother's transformation of her baby's distress, making meaning out of the     unthought about

  Storm Nordwind is Online

  Pila Mulligan: as in the metaphor of mother and fussy baby

  Pila Mulligan: wb Storm

  TR Amat: Dreams are a variety of thinking, and may be one way for our unconscious parts to communcate       with our consciousness.

  Maxine Walden: yes, wb, Storm

  Storm Nordwind: Thank you

  Maxine Walden: exactly, TR!

  Fefonz Quan: is the mother making sense of the baby's unthoguhts?

  Maxine Walden: dreaming is a kind of thinking, in just that way

  Fefonz Quan: i've lost it here

  TR Amat: Before SL dreams were as close as I got to personal experience of vehicle-free flying. :)

  Alfred Kelberry: maxine, did you have people in your practice who have seen something terrible in their           dreams and then couldn't get over it being afraid it may happen to them?

  Maxine Walden: yes, the mother is making sense, showing her baby that sense can be made of the distress

  Maxine Walden: yes, Alf, those might be traumatic dreams

  Fefonz Quan: i thought the distress can be relieved, no reason/sense needed

  Pila Mulligan: the mother (or dream) is offering a solution to the conflict

  Maxine Walden: dreams that attempt to master, to transform, but cannot as the 'stuff' remains too raw, to       rupturing of thought and repose...

  Alfred Kelberry: that's my worry about interpreting dreams by ourselves. people may put themselves to           danger.

  TR Amat: Some of my childhood nightmares only started to be dealt with when I began to practice meditation,   which drained all the fear out of them.

  Alfred Kelberry: making up things out of nowhere

  Pila Mulligan: facing your fear in a dream is sometimes easier than in waking times

  Maxine Walden: yes, meditation may be a kind of empathic comforting presence

  Maxine Walden: but Alf, I would suggest that when we ponder our dreams

  Lia Rikugun: i remember having had terrible dreams but wasnt frightened while sleeping

  Maxine Walden: that we are not making up things, we are allowing our

  TR Amat: Meditation gave me another way of handling the interface between my unconscious and conscious?

  Maxine Walden: associations to link our experiences

  Fefonz Quan meditates, and still has all kinds of strange and enteraining dreams

  Alfred Kelberry: i mean, if you get killed in a dream, it may cause some people a lot of stress.

  Maxine Walden: our various experiences so that we might glean meaning and order from the unthought about     experiences

  Fefonz Quan: dream people Alf?

  Alfred Kelberry: what?

  Fefonz Quan: (cause some people)

  Maxine Walden: it may be interesting to consider that most of what we are afraid of

  Maxine Walden: are fantasies, and fears

  Pila Mulligan: I had several close encounters with poisonous snakes in my youth, leaving me with a snake         anxiety that actually worked itself out to some degree in dreams

  Maxine Walden: which to the pre-thinking self are very real 'things'

  Fefonz Quan: i had some snakes dreams too, Pila

  Maxine Walden: interesting Pila, a very nice example of the help/work of dreams

  Pila Mulligan: they become less threatneing in dreams :)

  Pila Mulligan: eventually

  TR Amat: I experimented with past life regression, and that helped me deal with some of my phobias.

  Alfred Kelberry: interesting, pila

  Alfred Kelberry: glad it worked out for you :)

  Maxine Walden: and the young personality which cannot manage the huge emotions it has to bear develops       fears as well from those internal 'snakes', too big emotions

  TR Amat: Some of my dreams about fears were very strange...

  Maxine Walden: so there can be external and internal fearful images, and we become afraid, sometimes for       good reasons, but always because of something which seems dangerous

  Eyana Runningbear: so, are snakes often a sign of untapped or buried emotions from childhood?

  TR Amat: Snakes might bite you. Bad. :)

  Maxine Walden: can be, Eyana

  TR Amat: Some people have fears with no obvious roots.

  Solobill Laville is Offline

  Pila Mulligan: TR, did your experiment with past life regression invovle dreams?

  Fefonz Quan: For me snakes are among other frightful dreams experiences, like insects or other things, that     are very fast and dangerous as well, so i know i wouldn't be able to run frm them even if i tries

  Fefonz Quan: tried

  Fefonz Quan: (not to say flying creatures)

  TR Amat: Dreams did mix in to some extent with the regression. I regarded he regression as a sort of             exploration, and not necessarily as 'real'.

  Maxine Walden: just as we cannot run from our inner frightening thoughts, Fefonz?

  Alfred Kelberry: fef, it's funny, whenever i try to run away from something in a dream, it's terribly slow :)

  Pila Mulligan: face your fear -- waking or sleeping :)

  Fefonz Quan: that sounds easier, infact )

  Lia Rikugun: :)

  Fefonz Quan: :)

  TR Amat: The past life of being a scientist among beings that seemed to be floating in something like the         envelope of a gas giant planet was interesting...

  Maxine Walden: I am wondering if it would be interesting to consider staying on the lookout for a dram or two,   each of us, over the week

  TR Amat: The way of thinks of those creatures seemed very non-human.

  TR Amat: of thinking*

  Alfred Kelberry: tr, easy.. you're a robot :)

  Fefonz Quan: i can give an example from the last days about it

  TR Amat: A lot more strange than a human-built robot...

  Maxine Walden: As a workshop interested in dreams, we might consider trying to detect a dream or two over     the week. How does that sound?

  Storm Nordwind: What characteristics should we be looking out for Maxine?

  Pila Mulligan: sure, Maxine -- fun

  Alfred Kelberry: tr, maybe a mutation? :)

  Maxine Walden: I would suggest we take notepad to bedside, and to just open our mind, think of having a         dream...

  Maxine Walden: sort of ask our dreaming function to do a little homework.

  Pila Mulligan: Fefonz, did you want to give an example?

  Alfred Kelberry: you mean to program our dreams?

  Storm Nordwind: It is certainly true that we can preprogram ourselves like that.

  Fefonz Quan: just if others want to hear it :)

  Pila Mulligan: I would like to

  Alfred Kelberry: sure, fef

  Myna Maven: I would as well.

  Maxine Walden: Not to program our dreams, Fefonz, but to invite a dream

  Fefonz Quan: (that wasn't me programing)

  Pila Mulligan: :)

  Alfred Kelberry: too late, fef :)

  Alfred Kelberry: it's been programmed :)

  TR Amat: Last time I tried to program my dreams I awoke with no clear memory of any, except they were       unpleasant, and I'd had a broken night's sleep.

  Maxine Walden: sorry, misundersttod, didn't read the text fully

  Pila Mulligan: but Fefonz, despite the cnofusion, what was your example?

  Pila Mulligan: please

  Fefonz Quan: ok, i was returning to my home (which is abroad)

  Fefonz Quan: and in the garden there where some mutant insects

  Fefonz Quan: mutant in the sense that they had strange colors, bigger then usual, and weird anyway.

  Fefonz Quan: entering the house, there where some of them there to, and to cut to the end

  Fefonz Quan: one of them developed suddenly wings and jumped to my mouth

  Pila Mulligan: a kiss?

  Fefonz Quan: which was very unpleasant, and trying to get it out i woke up

  Fefonz Quan: (into my mouth)

  Fefonz Quan: the end.

  Alfred Kelberry: eek

  Pila Mulligan: odd dream

  Alfred Kelberry: did you feel it in your mouth?

  Fefonz Quan: yep

  Lia Rikugun: when you woke up?

  Alfred Kelberry: bleh

  Lia Rikugun: you still felt it?

  Fefonz Quan: nope

  Alfred Kelberry: found something? :)

  Maxine Walden: as if something scary wastrying to 'get inside'?

  Pila Mulligan: the idiom 'putting words in your mouth' comes to mind

  Fefonz Quan: i don't quite understand that

  Fefonz Quan: (maxine)

  TR Amat: Not chewy/crunchy bugs then?

  Alfred Kelberry: tr :)

  Fefonz Quan: crunchy with a chance of stingy, TR :)

  Maxine Walden: just wondering about the imagery and sequence of the images, if the dream conveyed a fear     of something unpleasant trying to get inside of you -- not an uncommon fear sometimes. but I may be very     off target

  Alfred Kelberry: fef, are you afraid of insects in rl?

  TR Amat: I don't think most dreams have a straight-forward symbology.

  Fefonz Quan: the bags where the most frightening issue in the dream, other then that it was cool

  TR Amat: Quite a few of my dreams seem to boil down to lack of control of my life...

  Fefonz Quan: only the ones that can sting you, sort of say, but not particularly

  Caledonia Heron: that's funny coming from a robot TR :)

  Maxine Walden: But, Fefonz, I may have just given an example of what not to do: try to suggest a meaning     without the dreamer doing so first

  Alfred Kelberry: cal :)

  TR Amat: But, that is a question of extracting a theme, not analysing specific imagery.

  Alfred Kelberry: i sense the revolution, cal :)

  Fefonz Quan: so i should try, Maxine?

  Storm Nordwind: It may be something as simple as a fear of the unconventional (the weird colours, sizes         etc.). If so, it is very deep-rooted, as getting into your house might represent you anyway (you=house) but       they didn't stop there! But that's just classical dream interpretation!

  Maxine Walden: yep, fefonz

  Fefonz Quan: so for me mostly the fear of something which maybe unconventional, but the main thing is that

  Pila Mulligan: Pila's idea: Fefonz's dream was related to this SL meeting -- as an image, here, it was               juxtaposed with the confusion in talking about programming a dream (that, as someone said, can have             distatseful results) -- the bugs were those thoughts that buzzed about in confusion and tried to get into his       mouth.  

  Maxine Walden: How be we each invite a dream for our next workshop. And then we would have a chance to     think about it ahead of time and share it and our thoughts about it with the group?

  TR Amat: I claim to be (mostly a self-willed robot. I definitely developed my own personality, when I was not   really supposed to have one. :)

  Alfred Kelberry: fef, when you saw that mutating bug in the house. did you think that it could jump in your       mouth before it did?

  Fefonz Quan: i have a feeling that it is faster/meaner then me,

  Fefonz Quan: so i wouldn't be able to stop it when attacked

  TR Amat: Lack of control of the situation?

  Fefonz Quan: yep, a bit of it

  Maxine Walden: It is 3pm and we should respect the time boundary as some of us have other committments.     We can talk further next time

  Pila Mulligan: thnaks Maxine

  Storm Nordwind nods

  Maxine Walden: and such things as control/or not, fears, etc we could pursue...or let our dreams do so

  Alfred Kelberry: thanks, maxine

  Fefonz Quan: Thanks Maxine

  Fefonz Quan: :)

  Alfred Kelberry: i'd like to hear more dreams next meeting :)

  Maxine Walden: OK, see you next time, with our invited dreams

  Lia Rikugun: thank you was very interesting

  Storm Nordwind: Thank you again Maxine!

  Myna Maven: Thanks, Maxine.