/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21214210]

Greetings again readers, today I will discuss an idea I have had regarding the power of our imaginative faculty and its relation to what we call the external world.

To begin, I think we would all agree that we all have some faculty of our mind which can generate a kind of imagery, albeit lacking the reality of what we take to be real in our physical experience. Now, I also think that we would agree that from time to time we have a type of experience that also lacks the intense reality of our conscious physical experience and occurs while we are sleeping; these experiences we call dreams.

Now, we usually take the imaginative faculty during waking life to be subject to our will and as a result imaginings are within our control. On the other hand, in our dream experiences, many events appear to occur against our will. However, I think that both dreams and waking imaginings are both products of our imaginative faculty. Why then is it that one experience is taken to be voluntary and the other involuntary?

I think an analogy to the functioning of the imaginative faculty could be made with the functioning our lungs; our breathing process can occur on a voluntary and involuntary level. It is constantly occurring in the background unconsciously and involuntarily, but enters our consciousness when we voluntarily take over the breathing process. In comparison, dreaming is like unconscious involuntary breathing in so far as in dreaming the dream events occur against our will and, although we are conscious of the dream, we lack the self-awareness to be conscious that we are *in* a dream; waking imaginings, on the other hand, are like conscious breathing, in that we are imagining in accordance with our will and our aware that they our only our imagings; we are self aware and do not become identified with the imaginings, that is to say, lose self-awareness.

Now notice that waking reality has a more intense reality, or sensual intensity, than dreams, and dreams have a more intense reality than waking imaginings. In this way, I hypothesize that waking reality, dream worlds, and waking imaginings are all a continuum of the products of our imaginative faculty. If this is so, then to continue with the breathing analogy, then there may be ways to taking conscious, self-aware, and voluntary control of dreams, and in fact there are many who claim to have developed this ability through what is called lucid dreaming. Furthermore, if we achieve the ability to alter our dream reality, then if our waking reality is also a product of our imaginative faculty, which I believe it is, then believe we may also be able to alter waking reality by attaining a type of self awareness. Now, how this self- awareness is to be obtained I am not sure, but I suspect that the methods of Yoga are, in fact, the path to this self-awareness, and, as a result, a path to becoming divine in a very literal sense

[Anonymous No.21214220]

>>21214210
Apparently William Blake learned to hallucinate at will by staring at his nose for weeks on end.

[Anonymous No.21214223]

>>21214210
Might makes right, chud. *snaps your neck*

[Anonymous No.21214260]

>>21214210
>Why then is it that one experience is taken to be voluntary and the other involuntary?
Daydreams arent voluntary tho.
Lots of words to say that vividness = presence = existence on a brute psychological level.

[Anonymous No.21214328]

>>21214220
He was literally a "yogi". Nose tip gazing, or nasikagra drishti mudra, as it is called by the yogis. It actually works tho.

[Anonymous No.21214379]

>>21214210
How does this theory mesh with the existence of other human beings in the waking reality that we can perceive? In a dream world most of the other people are very 2 dimensional at best, even during lucid dreams the actions of other entities do not make as much sense as what we can perceive while awake, specifically because of the self awareness of the dream state.
While we are awake and in control of all of our conscious faculties, we are able to experience much deeper interactions with other real human beings, animals, nature, machines, writing, etc. However, the dream state and the waking state share something very similar in the aspect that we cannot control anything else except our own actions. The events which play out in front of us at the behest of other living beings and nature are entirely out of an individual's control.
Besides the trust that we hold in each other within communication and language, and the mental/physical capabilities of other people and whether or not they do what you say, we are basically entirely powerless to the world around us with the exception of our reaction time and decision making capabilities slash physical capabilities.
So what is there to do with this sort of information? Just exert more willpower on the world around yourself and other people? Become the pillar which sticks into the ground and allows other people to ground themselves in reality?
I have no clue and probably never will.

[Anonymous No.21214445]

>>21214210
waking and dreaming are two mutualy exclusive states, so they're both unreal

[Anonymous No.21214471]

>>21214445
How so?

[Anonymous No.21214518]

>>21214210
The difference between the waking state and dream is not "sensual intensity", it is the inability in dream states to possess repose. You are entirely dictated by the process of the dream and have no agency. Dreams are probably the closest you will come to experiencing a lack of free will. The evidence is this: I can guarantee you have never had a dream where you were genuinely "bored" or "reflective", at best you may have been compelled to "feel" these things momentarily, which you are confusing with "lack of intensity" simply because you are not able to reflect upon them as you would in the waking state in a state of proper idleness. And I don't know why you chose your image, you would be better off reading René Guénon, in particular Man and his Becoming, the section on dreams and deep sleep.
>Furthermore, if we achieve the ability to alter our dream reality, then if our waking reality is also a product of our imaginative faculty, which I believe it is, then believe we may also be able to alter waking reality
>then if our waking reality is also a product of our imaginative faculty,
This is not correct. The "imaginative faculty" is an individual faculty which is unique to your human individuality, you can only modify it or master it within yourself, and it is distinct from "waking reality" (which is not a faculty at all). Mastering the internal faculties of your individuality will not allow you to in and of itself to master a reality comprised of individuals which are beyond your own individuality in their own domain. While it is in a sense true that "waking reality" is only analogically a kind of dream state, to become "lucid" of this state, just like an actual dream occurring within the human individuality, requires transcending the state itself, which means it requires transcending the individuality you think you possess and understanding what it is that the dream is "in." However, it is also wrong to imagine this type of lucidity is completely analogical to a dream state within a human being. That's all I will say about that.

[Anonymous No.21214738]

>>21214445
both of them looks real

but:
- when i'm dreaming everything is real and i don't even reckon this waking state, it does not exist
- when i'm in the waking state everything is real and I consider the dream as an illusion.

this ego/individuality (from the waking standpoint) is not the ego of the various dreams

so they both (the states of dream and waking) exclude each other. Which one is the real? neither
how could something that appears and disappears like bubbles or waves be considered as real?

[Anonymous No.21214745]

>>21214445
>>21214471

[Anonymous No.21215107]

>>21214210
well I had a wet dream, and in this wet dream someone had tied me down and raped me with a broom handle what am I to make of this?

[Anonymous No.21215231]

>>21214738
>- when i'm dreaming everything is real and i don't even reckon this waking state, it does not exist
>- when i'm in the waking state everything is real and I consider the dream as an illusion.
More that when you dream you don't thematize the existence of what you see, it is not something you are exactly involved in, at least not to a certain degree (dreams vary in vividness and agency, I have had nightmares where my arm was being sawed off and I could smell, hear and feel the metal-on-bone action, and most other dreams are very "dull" experiences).
Just like in daydreaming the presence of the phenomenon doesn't translate into full actuality. In fact the introduction of the theme of actuality usually ends the previous experience. In the waking state presence is equated to existence in the natural attitude, and the primary mode of presence is contiguous sense experience.

[Anonymous No.21215731]

>>21214745
How so?

[Anonymous No.21216013]

>>21215231
>In the waking state presence is equated to existence in the natural attitude, and the primary mode of presence is contiguous sense experience.
Just like in dreams.

[Anonymous No.21216026]

>>21214738
>how could something that appears and disappears like bubbles or waves be considered as real?
This doesn't make sense. Bubbles and waves are real, they are just transient.

[Anonymous No.21216172]

>>21216026
by real i mean something 'essential' or substantial, enduring,

both waking and dreaming are mere transitory states
and when you compare the two from their own perspectives there's no way to privilege one over the other
both are ruled by the same laws ( causality, space/time and other a priori concepts) though in different ways

>>21215231
> it is not something you are exactly involved in,
you can only say that when you wake up,
in the dream you cannot negate anything, all looks real, just like in the waking