United Gnosis
Jedi Council Member
Context: Last night I had a dream that was very touching and insightful for me. I believe it might be worth sharing, as it was an interesting exploration of the themes important to this forum.
I usually have very good dream recall but this is the first significant dream that marked me in the last few months, which made it seem all the more important. Please note that some terms are related to kung fu and yoga, but none are apocryphal. Also, although it was not a lucid dream per se (I was not conscious that it was a dream), most of the dream-state was spent in a state of self-remembering, which is still rare for my dreams and hence all the more significant.
Also, I refer to a dream "we", which is me and a group of friends of various closeness I Work with through partner yoga. Interestingly, there are way more advanced students and teachers in that group that look up to for inspiration, but in the dream I am the most advanced of the subset who are present. Group members were picked off throughout the dream stages in a way that seemed closely correlated with their degree of integration.
The first thing I did when waking up is come up with a single line that describes the overall theme, which is:
7/6/2013: The School of Life
I come to my senses, knowing that the setting is a world corrupted by the powers that be. I see a woman walking on the sidewalk and entering a compound, and can feel that her energy is the same as that which afflicts our world.
Wanting to do something about it, we decide to follow her.
As we enter the compound, we realize that it is a sprawling, decrepit school campus that is a school only in name, yet where all of the children get sent to get "taught". There is no such thing as discipline or authority, and in the first building we enter kids are lining up, progressing apparently aimlessly along the dank hallways, yet with some kind of organizing principle, the kids competing to get ahead in a casual, every-day game of appearances.
The kids do not include us in their games, nor do they seem to be aware of the subtle mechanics of dominance taking place. [Here what I was perceiving was very similar to what Laura described as she went to pick her kids from school and witnessed the feeder energy dynamics] Since the kids do not engage us, we can progress unhindered, advancing along the line until we reach a sad, unlit classroom with peeling paint and gaping holes in the old sheet-rock.
A somewhat reasonably dress young man welcomes us to his class. He enjoins me to sit and simultaneously puts his hand on my shoulder, pressing me towards the seat. [State of self-remembering started here and stuck for the rest of the dream] I suddenly realize the nature of that not-so-subtly dominant gesture and my body awareness awakens, standing back up and going in Tadasana [yoga; mountain pose, which is the basic standing stance with the chest wide open, posture straight and strong with shoulders wide yet relaxed]. His downward push has no way to withstand my rising impulse. As I stretch into my awareness and refine the posture, straightening my stance, opening my chest and fine-tuning my shoulder placement, I notice that, by Tadasana standards, his posture is very poor, mis-aligned and weak.
The young teacher possibly noticed that his dominance attempt didn't work - if he were even aware of trying to dominate me - and, maintaining a candid, didactic attitude, congratulates me on my desire to stand up. As he does so, he grabs my hands by the wrists to lead me somewhere.
At this point, not having any reason to trust him, I subtly rotate my wrists inside his grip so that my centerline is protected, while he drones on, flattering me about my posture but not realizing the weakness of his own. Suddenly, he attacks me, but my centerline being already protected in a way that opens his, I easily deflect the wide swing, grabbing both his wrists from the inside and raising a knee that could easily be thrown in his midsection.
I ask, "What do you do now?" and he looks at me, dumbfounded. I gently pull his wrists to either side while lifting my knee to demonstrate that he is not in control, but it is now obvious to me that the man is completely oblivious to the true situation. I make the gesture again, pulling him towards my knee without making contact, and he finally seems to realize.
He goes, "Oh" as he figures out his next move, and decides to bring his legs in the "game", as this is not challenging enough for me to call it anything else. With my knee already raised at the ready, he has to move his own leg around it, which makes it easy for me to deflect and maintain control over his centerline.
He then starts attacking more and more passionately as he realizes the gravity of the situation, but my breath remains calm and steady, my body alert, easily containing and directing the ebb and flow of his attacks.
Knowing there is little else for me to do here, I throw him off balance then push him back to disengage, then excuse myself from the rest of the class, eager to move on ahead.
We exit the classroom and walk along the crumbling halls, moving easily as the kids around are absorbed in various appearances of play and posturing, boys making nasty pranks and girls laughing about each other's accessories. We are now intensely aware of the fight for dominance that this represents.
We move out of the building and walk on the campus's street. In the distance we can start to distinguish teens. They have upped their game and there are now rastafaris, sportsy guys, punks and so on. Lots of smoking weed and commercial cigarettes is taking place, and we can easily see the few who radiate confidence and the others who puff anxiously on their cigarettes, trying to maintain a fake but cool appearance.
I purposefully place myself at the front the line of teens, next to the most impressive group of teens who happen to be rastafaris are somehow conveying the impression that they are waiting for something [not in the sense of a conflict as they look very confident of their social status, but rather expectant for their next stage].
The group looks at me, weighing me but make no move. As the other members of my group arrive, visibly less confident than me, the teens start antagonizing us and chase the others off into various directions. Meanwhile, I calmly stand my ground as the one who seems to be the most apt individual makes a beeline towards me.
He's a nimble and fit young man with a quiet confidence. He does not wait a single moment but flows into a balanced attack which I deflect well, nevertheless surprise is visible on my face due to the quality of his style.
From Bong Sao [kung fu, for deflecting attacks coming from the external upwards quadrant] I rotate outwards into a simple Tan Sao, flicking a grab at his wrist and controlling both of his arms with one of mine as the other is free to come in for his flank or head if I wished. Unlike the earlier predatory teacher to whom I purposefully had to point out the gravity of his situation, this youth sees it at once and acknowledges it with a strained nod as he catches his balance and comes back to exchange a few more moves.
Unable to threaten me whereas I consistently managed to open his defenses through which I knows I could strike him, the youth disengages from his aggression. Instinctively, I move in to neutralize the threat he revealed himself to be but he reads my intention and interrupts, admitting: "I had to test you. You know that. Now please chill out!"
I feel that only one member of my group failed to similarly face his own challenge, and our remaining members run through the streets to regroup and catch the lift that the teen group had been waiting for.
The lift turns out to be quite litterally a cable car. Most of the compartments have actually fallen off, only racks remaining tied to the cable. A lone, dinghy car stops for us to take it. Feeling intuitively that this car is dangerous if all of the others fell off, we choose to rather take the hard way and hold directly onto the cable on the way up.
We arrive on top of the hill with one member less, happy to know two of us have avoided a potentially very dire situation. There is a quaint little clinic close by, so me and the only remaining member of the group head in.
Inside, the clinic is rather homely, with a warm feel and cookies straight out of an oven. A door is marked "Doctor's office", and we go in, closing the door behind us.
On the examination bed lies a sickly, overweight woman. I ask who is the doctor and she replies she is. I then realize that this is the woman we've first seen entering the compound, giving us the impulse to see what could be done.
"I know you," I say. "You are Wishful Thinking, the Corruption of Hope." She does not reject the label, but goes into a diatribe describing the services she offers.
Looking around, I notice what seems to be a bloated corpse below the examination bed. But it still moves and slides out, by its own means but with some difficulty.
"It" is a thoroughly obese man, with blotched skin and a diseased constitution. His left leg has been amputated at the knee and we can easily see where a leg from another body has recently been sewn on.
I watch with reasonable horror as he describes how the doctor saved his life, all the while he is lying there, naked on the filthy floor. I tell him his life threatened now more than ever, then notice that his original, severed leg is stashed under the examination table, forgotten, rotting away. I am struck at the insanity of it, and realize that my own health is at risk just by being in the room.
As the obese man denies the gravity of his situation, the frankenstein-like sewn-on leg oozes pus and bodily fluids, pooling around the morbid mass of his body. I know I need to back off and I walk slowly out, facing them all the time. As the door closes, I hear a sudden growl from inside the room and a knife shoots out through the interstice, flying straight at me. I barely have time to duck out of the way, then quickly grab the knife as it planted itself in the wall.
I now see the clinic in a new light. Grime covers the walls, the light has a sickly shade and even the cookies seem diseased, smelling of what I can only guess is human flesh.
Out of the blue, a young schoolgirl appears, wearing a black skirt and a vividly violet satin shirt. She's one of the kids that I aimed to protect as I first entered the compound, and I now face her alone, as the last member of the group - the other member never came out of the doctor's office. She smiles innocently at the knife I hold and motion at me to attack, putting herself in a defensive stance. Inquisitively, I move in with a very non-committed move, keeping the blade away in fear of hurting her.
As she effortlessly parries my probing attack, I know instantly that she is by far the most skillful opponent I've faced so far. We start flowing in a deadly dance of intertwined arms, her flow masterfully containing my attacks even as she deals with the added threat of the knife.
I can barely believe what I'm seeing as she deflects the blade, catching then guiding away its flat side with her upper arm, even as she grabs my guiding elbow, disarming me and throwing me off balance.
Her other hand comes in lightning quick, shaping a finishing blow with her extended fingertips that could easily have rammed through my trachea. However, she stops short with fine control, barely flicking at my adam's apple.
"Let your soul be your sole weapon", she enjoins. I bow down respectfully and gratefully, then wake up.
Edit: Readability
I usually have very good dream recall but this is the first significant dream that marked me in the last few months, which made it seem all the more important. Please note that some terms are related to kung fu and yoga, but none are apocryphal. Also, although it was not a lucid dream per se (I was not conscious that it was a dream), most of the dream-state was spent in a state of self-remembering, which is still rare for my dreams and hence all the more significant.
Also, I refer to a dream "we", which is me and a group of friends of various closeness I Work with through partner yoga. Interestingly, there are way more advanced students and teachers in that group that look up to for inspiration, but in the dream I am the most advanced of the subset who are present. Group members were picked off throughout the dream stages in a way that seemed closely correlated with their degree of integration.
The first thing I did when waking up is come up with a single line that describes the overall theme, which is:
7/6/2013: The School of Life
I come to my senses, knowing that the setting is a world corrupted by the powers that be. I see a woman walking on the sidewalk and entering a compound, and can feel that her energy is the same as that which afflicts our world.
Wanting to do something about it, we decide to follow her.
As we enter the compound, we realize that it is a sprawling, decrepit school campus that is a school only in name, yet where all of the children get sent to get "taught". There is no such thing as discipline or authority, and in the first building we enter kids are lining up, progressing apparently aimlessly along the dank hallways, yet with some kind of organizing principle, the kids competing to get ahead in a casual, every-day game of appearances.
The kids do not include us in their games, nor do they seem to be aware of the subtle mechanics of dominance taking place. [Here what I was perceiving was very similar to what Laura described as she went to pick her kids from school and witnessed the feeder energy dynamics] Since the kids do not engage us, we can progress unhindered, advancing along the line until we reach a sad, unlit classroom with peeling paint and gaping holes in the old sheet-rock.
A somewhat reasonably dress young man welcomes us to his class. He enjoins me to sit and simultaneously puts his hand on my shoulder, pressing me towards the seat. [State of self-remembering started here and stuck for the rest of the dream] I suddenly realize the nature of that not-so-subtly dominant gesture and my body awareness awakens, standing back up and going in Tadasana [yoga; mountain pose, which is the basic standing stance with the chest wide open, posture straight and strong with shoulders wide yet relaxed]. His downward push has no way to withstand my rising impulse. As I stretch into my awareness and refine the posture, straightening my stance, opening my chest and fine-tuning my shoulder placement, I notice that, by Tadasana standards, his posture is very poor, mis-aligned and weak.
The young teacher possibly noticed that his dominance attempt didn't work - if he were even aware of trying to dominate me - and, maintaining a candid, didactic attitude, congratulates me on my desire to stand up. As he does so, he grabs my hands by the wrists to lead me somewhere.
At this point, not having any reason to trust him, I subtly rotate my wrists inside his grip so that my centerline is protected, while he drones on, flattering me about my posture but not realizing the weakness of his own. Suddenly, he attacks me, but my centerline being already protected in a way that opens his, I easily deflect the wide swing, grabbing both his wrists from the inside and raising a knee that could easily be thrown in his midsection.
I ask, "What do you do now?" and he looks at me, dumbfounded. I gently pull his wrists to either side while lifting my knee to demonstrate that he is not in control, but it is now obvious to me that the man is completely oblivious to the true situation. I make the gesture again, pulling him towards my knee without making contact, and he finally seems to realize.
He goes, "Oh" as he figures out his next move, and decides to bring his legs in the "game", as this is not challenging enough for me to call it anything else. With my knee already raised at the ready, he has to move his own leg around it, which makes it easy for me to deflect and maintain control over his centerline.
He then starts attacking more and more passionately as he realizes the gravity of the situation, but my breath remains calm and steady, my body alert, easily containing and directing the ebb and flow of his attacks.
Knowing there is little else for me to do here, I throw him off balance then push him back to disengage, then excuse myself from the rest of the class, eager to move on ahead.
We exit the classroom and walk along the crumbling halls, moving easily as the kids around are absorbed in various appearances of play and posturing, boys making nasty pranks and girls laughing about each other's accessories. We are now intensely aware of the fight for dominance that this represents.
We move out of the building and walk on the campus's street. In the distance we can start to distinguish teens. They have upped their game and there are now rastafaris, sportsy guys, punks and so on. Lots of smoking weed and commercial cigarettes is taking place, and we can easily see the few who radiate confidence and the others who puff anxiously on their cigarettes, trying to maintain a fake but cool appearance.
I purposefully place myself at the front the line of teens, next to the most impressive group of teens who happen to be rastafaris are somehow conveying the impression that they are waiting for something [not in the sense of a conflict as they look very confident of their social status, but rather expectant for their next stage].
The group looks at me, weighing me but make no move. As the other members of my group arrive, visibly less confident than me, the teens start antagonizing us and chase the others off into various directions. Meanwhile, I calmly stand my ground as the one who seems to be the most apt individual makes a beeline towards me.
He's a nimble and fit young man with a quiet confidence. He does not wait a single moment but flows into a balanced attack which I deflect well, nevertheless surprise is visible on my face due to the quality of his style.
From Bong Sao [kung fu, for deflecting attacks coming from the external upwards quadrant] I rotate outwards into a simple Tan Sao, flicking a grab at his wrist and controlling both of his arms with one of mine as the other is free to come in for his flank or head if I wished. Unlike the earlier predatory teacher to whom I purposefully had to point out the gravity of his situation, this youth sees it at once and acknowledges it with a strained nod as he catches his balance and comes back to exchange a few more moves.
Unable to threaten me whereas I consistently managed to open his defenses through which I knows I could strike him, the youth disengages from his aggression. Instinctively, I move in to neutralize the threat he revealed himself to be but he reads my intention and interrupts, admitting: "I had to test you. You know that. Now please chill out!"
I feel that only one member of my group failed to similarly face his own challenge, and our remaining members run through the streets to regroup and catch the lift that the teen group had been waiting for.
The lift turns out to be quite litterally a cable car. Most of the compartments have actually fallen off, only racks remaining tied to the cable. A lone, dinghy car stops for us to take it. Feeling intuitively that this car is dangerous if all of the others fell off, we choose to rather take the hard way and hold directly onto the cable on the way up.
We arrive on top of the hill with one member less, happy to know two of us have avoided a potentially very dire situation. There is a quaint little clinic close by, so me and the only remaining member of the group head in.
Inside, the clinic is rather homely, with a warm feel and cookies straight out of an oven. A door is marked "Doctor's office", and we go in, closing the door behind us.
On the examination bed lies a sickly, overweight woman. I ask who is the doctor and she replies she is. I then realize that this is the woman we've first seen entering the compound, giving us the impulse to see what could be done.
"I know you," I say. "You are Wishful Thinking, the Corruption of Hope." She does not reject the label, but goes into a diatribe describing the services she offers.
Looking around, I notice what seems to be a bloated corpse below the examination bed. But it still moves and slides out, by its own means but with some difficulty.
"It" is a thoroughly obese man, with blotched skin and a diseased constitution. His left leg has been amputated at the knee and we can easily see where a leg from another body has recently been sewn on.
I watch with reasonable horror as he describes how the doctor saved his life, all the while he is lying there, naked on the filthy floor. I tell him his life threatened now more than ever, then notice that his original, severed leg is stashed under the examination table, forgotten, rotting away. I am struck at the insanity of it, and realize that my own health is at risk just by being in the room.
As the obese man denies the gravity of his situation, the frankenstein-like sewn-on leg oozes pus and bodily fluids, pooling around the morbid mass of his body. I know I need to back off and I walk slowly out, facing them all the time. As the door closes, I hear a sudden growl from inside the room and a knife shoots out through the interstice, flying straight at me. I barely have time to duck out of the way, then quickly grab the knife as it planted itself in the wall.
I now see the clinic in a new light. Grime covers the walls, the light has a sickly shade and even the cookies seem diseased, smelling of what I can only guess is human flesh.
Out of the blue, a young schoolgirl appears, wearing a black skirt and a vividly violet satin shirt. She's one of the kids that I aimed to protect as I first entered the compound, and I now face her alone, as the last member of the group - the other member never came out of the doctor's office. She smiles innocently at the knife I hold and motion at me to attack, putting herself in a defensive stance. Inquisitively, I move in with a very non-committed move, keeping the blade away in fear of hurting her.
As she effortlessly parries my probing attack, I know instantly that she is by far the most skillful opponent I've faced so far. We start flowing in a deadly dance of intertwined arms, her flow masterfully containing my attacks even as she deals with the added threat of the knife.
I can barely believe what I'm seeing as she deflects the blade, catching then guiding away its flat side with her upper arm, even as she grabs my guiding elbow, disarming me and throwing me off balance.
Her other hand comes in lightning quick, shaping a finishing blow with her extended fingertips that could easily have rammed through my trachea. However, she stops short with fine control, barely flicking at my adam's apple.
"Let your soul be your sole weapon", she enjoins. I bow down respectfully and gratefully, then wake up.
Edit: Readability
