Dreaming Life » quotes

Colorful quote on dreaming from an interview with Jeff Warren

Ben — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:19:44 +0000

Photo by Mark WonderFerret

I try not to be one of those blogs that does nothing but post quotes, cuz that’s usually kinda lame, but every once in awhile, a good quote is worth sharing…

With that in mind, I stumbled upon a lovely interview today with Jeff Warren, author of The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness, where on the topic of sleep, he marvels at the fact of dreaming, and how amazing this is, in and of itself, stating:

When you wake up in a dream and actually take a look around — it’s bananas. It’s the absolute craziest goddamn thing in all of human life. Every night we beam down into an elaborate virtual world where we can pound the walls with our oven-mitt fists and sniff giant daisies and have elliptical conversations with archetypal bus drivers. From inside a dream there is nothing vague or washed out about the experience — dreams are totally real, as real as getting off the plane in Lagos and ordering a beer from some guy at the side of the road. You are at this place — you’re IN it! At the time it’s every bit as solid and real as waking. Except… and this is what’s so cool… except when you’re self-consciously aware inside the dream you can then squeeze up real close to the walls with your little magnifying glass and look for suture marks. You can conduct experiments. You come to realize that there is a set of laws operating in the dream world that is every bit as real as the laws of physics in the waking world. What are these laws? And why aren’t there as many scientists down here with their slide rules and theories as there are out there? We spend our lives in two worlds and yet we only pay attention to one of them…

I also love his response to why he largely avoided discussing drug-induced states of consciousness in his book, opening with “they’re the really obvious shit.” Ha!

There’s something about his writing style that I really enjoy, it’s very down to earth. You get the since that he’s very honest and sincere in his explorations.

You can read the whole interview with Jeff Warran here or check out his book The Head Trip at Amazon.

Photo by WonderFerret

Interesting quote from Richard Bach

Ben — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:32:20 +0000

nature by Wiberg

In discussing a new found ability to rememeber his dreams after writing them down, Richard Bach, author of Illusions and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, writes in A Gift of Wings:

It wasn’t much later that I noticed that my days were dreams themselves, and just as deeply forgotten. When I couldn’t remember what happened last Wednesday, or even last Saturday, I began keeping a journal of days as well as of nights, and for a long time I was afraid I had forgotten most of my life.”

We all know how easily our dreams slip away from us, but what about the memories of our waking lives?

The specifics of our days blend together and so easily become forgotten, just like a passing dream.

This observation frightens me.

Photo by Wiberg.

Stephen LaBerge quote on dreaming and perception

Ben — Mon, 21 May 2007 21:28:06 +0000

“Dreaming is perception unconstrained by sensory input. And vice versa, what is perception is what we’re doing right now; dreaming, constrained by sensory input.”

Stephen LaBerge, interview, captured in DVD series titled “Consciousness
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Be Happy by H.E. Situ Rinpoche

Ben — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:42:49 +0000

The Astonishing Hypothesis

Ben — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:03:19 +0000

Try to wrap your mind around this:

“The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”

Francis Crick

Can our sense of self be so callously and casually dismissed?

Science & Religion: having my cake and eating it, too…

Ben — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:59:59 +0000

Can you guess where the quote below comes from?

I’ll give you a hint: he’s a famous religious figure.

“Given that one of the primary characteristics of consciousness is its subjective and experiential nature, any systematic study of it must adopt a method that will give access to the dimensions of subjectivity and experience.

A comprehensive scientific study of consciousness must therefore embrace both third-person and first-person methods: it cannot ignore the phenomenological reality of subjective experience but must observe all the rules of scientific rigor. So the critical question is this: Can we envision a scientific methodology for the study of consciousness whereby a robust first-person method, which does full justice to the phenomenology of experience, can be combined with the objectivist perspective of the study of the brain?”

Survey says:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The quote is from his fascinating book The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. It’s relatively new – circa 2005 – and I’m about half-way through it at the moment.

It boggles my mind how intelligent and fearless the Dalai Lama is in integrating science with Buddhism. Other famous religious figures walk away with their tail between their legs when it comes to the realm of science – that is, even they even dare to acknowledge science!

Yet the Dalai Lama actively pursues the scientific community and a scientific understanding of Buddhism.

For me, an integration of Buddhist practices with a scientific understanding of the world is like….having my cake and eating it too.