Hi All:

I'm working through Tom's book presently. About 330 pages or so in, so pardon any misinterpretations that may follow. But I can travel OOB more or less at will and have plenty of experience to draw from. So in this process, I am assessing Tom's theories vs my own (lot's of synergy) and of course plotting out what is next.

One thing I have always struggled with is communication with others in NPMR. For ease of discussion, let's just call them Dream Characters (DC's).

Some of my DC's are brilliant, and others are buffoons. If these beings have independent sentience, how does one explain that?

Given what I know from Tom's work so far, I assume it's a matter of interpretation. We have 3D PMR centric minds that know how to interpret our space pretty well. But when out of body and operating in NPMR, our interpretation of that subset of reality cells is not as good. We probably introduce a lot of our own concepts and misconceptions in interpreting the scene and communication (I'm extrapolating here, not sure if I'm to this point in the book, if it exists at all).

So if that theory is correct, then use of verbal communication is clearly sub-optimal. Use of non-verbal communication would clearly be the correct approach. I am familiar with the concept given my understanding of Monroe's work as well (Rotes).

Here's my challenge. All of my DC communication has been literal (verbal). I have made some attempts at NVC but they have not gone particularly well. So does anyone have any practical examples of how they approached the challenge of learning NVC???

Looking forward to your thoughts.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

DrTechnical - I found this reference of Tom's to communication in NPMR.

Telepathy shares ideas and thoughts rather than letters and words. Letters and words (linear arrays of symbols representing metaphors) only occur in the more constrained PMR reality frames. Within NPMR telepathy is standard - it is more trouble to break a communication down into words and language. However it is more than images and feelings. It is more like communication in whole paragraphs at a time - sometimes more like whole chapters. Images are often used and feelings also, but less frequently. After you receive such a message you translate it into metaphors and symbols that are resident in your own experience set. If the message is something familiar, you can do a reasonably accurate job of reinterpreting what you received in terms of your own base reality frame (PMR) beliefs, experience, and language. If what you receive is far outside your experience, you will pattern match the closest metaphor you have in your experience which may be way off the mark from what was intended.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2802&p=4106&hilit=non+verbal+communication#p4106

Robert Monroe made up his own terms for it - one he called rote. That meant getting a whole packet of information at once (as I remember - all my Monroe books are on loan at the moment.)

Characters that you are interacting with that seem to be dummies may be only characters in an un-actualized past data base. Those characters have no free will.

From my limited experience what I understand as a ROTE (although it may be something different then what I explain in here) is a whole package of information coming through. For instance in one of the dream settings when I arrived at a certain point I had the whole memory of what was happened before, in a different time, but it came to me like a sudden knowing.

This is similar to deja-vu although in dream it was like a sudden remembrance and recognizing familiar patterns - like you already did all the things without actually doing them except they came into memory. Another idea that I can think of is some entity or something wanted to give me information and my mind translated as best as it could and it came like a remembrance.

Interesting responses so far. And I do agree, that NVC is not necessarily in ROTE form though it could be. I don’t want to distract too much from the main question, but I will share a quick story of NVC that I seem to have received and decoded properly. It’s an odd sequence of events:

I had a non-lucid dream where Robert Monroe had visited my house with a number of colleagues. I try to say hi but he ignores my gesture. He and his friends plant a satellite dish on my house (when I wake, I realized that the dish represented a communication method of course).

In a lucid dream that followed, I purposely went to the top of the garage and tried to tune into an ident (tried anyway) of Monroe or a colleague and to my surprise found a totem pole had appeared on my property, complete with a bear figure (I did a little research on bear dream guides. I also asked an American Indian friend her advice. She suggested that I try to find the bear in my next lucid, and let it "show me something").

I have a lucid dream and find my bear guide. Unsure what to call it, I blurt out “I will call you little brown one” (LBO). LBO runs to the backyard, and I find it as a cub and it has a terrible injury to its abdomen. I comfort it and try to help it heal (Seemed to me that the NVC message was to not overpower my dreamspace, but work more synergistically with it, as I tend to induce my will too strongly sometimes).

I have another lucid dream. I call out for LBO. He comes. We embrace, etc …

A day later, I finished the Monroe trilogy. It is revealed that Monroe is referred to as “Little one” (something I had not previously known). I can interpret this a few different ways. But it was a very powerful experience regardless. This is one reason why the notion of NVC is something I wish to further explore.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

I call that synchronicity or co-incidents, cool things like that. But I only have access to events from this frame, that I know of.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Here's a bit of what I've learned so far in my explorations:

I believe I have recieved 'ROTEs' .However, I am always a bit uncertain as to whether or not I have recieved a clear communication;or have overlayed my own interpretations or assumptions upon it. ( the later seems unavoidable as sainbury's post states)

Much communication is symbolic. The NPMR environment itself may sometimes respond to a query this way. One example: Though not religious,I call out to see 'God'. The clouds above form into the face of a bearded man. I took this to be saying humorously -"what ? is this what you wanted to see? happy now ? "

When I think of it ,symbolic communication seems very efficient and low entropy. Alot of info can be communicated at once if meaning-metaphors are already shared or known between senders and recievers.

More complex messages may be strings of ordered symbolic events.An example: Lucid,I see a school bus with solar panels on the roof.It is driving in circles in a field on a school campus.DCs are running about fighting with each other.The bus explodes,shattering into pieces falling to the ground. Some emerge reformed and rise above my field of vision.

My interpretation:Bus=vehicle for learning=body.
Solar panel=PMR bodily dependence on photosynthesis.
School campus=PMR.
Driving in circles=Karma,redundancy,stagnation...
DCs fighting=high entropy folly of human interactions.
Explosion-scattering=Bodily death ( end of 'experience packet' )
Emergence= next ????

I have the same experience with "DCs". I believe a given NPMR dreamspace may contain both sentient and nonsentient beings.I have found verbal communication to be very effective when lucky enough to engage the right DC. Some responses and conversations never cease to amaze me ! This area really interests me.

What does "DC" stand for, please?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

DC = dream character. Common term in the lucid dreaming community.

Expectation is a funny thing here. Two nights ago, I have three lucid dreams (acquired lucidity from within the dream as opposed to a direct transition). My main goal was to experiment with DC communication.

Perhaps as a matter of expectation, all of my DC's were quite astute, at times making insights and using words that are outside my personal tendencies.

Even started to "daydream" during one such conversation and may have received my first ROTE.

Anyway, I think this is all very fascinating, but yes, the matter of interpretation creates a very tricky problem here. My goal is to simply assume my DC's have intelligence, and slowly move away from verbal communication as the sole method of info transfer. We'll see how that goes.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

Doc,

There is at least one TMI CD that teaches NVC.
OASW ALERT!!!
(~~~Overly Acroniminized Sentence Warning!!!~~~)

Separately, if you try to "think" primarily in sensory images, it will also be good training. It's actually easier to use complex sets that you already have in your library: Close you eyes and imagine rewalking down a familiar lane, and recompose the experience as best as you can. It's ok if you slip up into words with the exercise, but focus on the senses, both physical and those of emotion. As you get successful with this, you will find that you are rediscovering details that you hadn't noticed that you noticed (were semi-consciously aware of) the first go-round.

Another process you can engage in is to often ask yourself if the thought that you just thunk is exactly what you meant to think... doing that actually discombobulates the thought process with a trusty self-referential conundrum and also requires you to compare the thought to the intent, (always a nonverbal process, though it can be assisted by verbalizations). Either you will slip in and out of what seems to be awareness, or you will alter your awareness into a mode in which it is okay to conceive of matters outside the constraints of language.

Also you can ask, "Just what IS this thought-thinking process...? How do I think a thought...?" ... and even though you may handle a lot of that process in 'words', it will help you move 'out of your mind (modeling system that is generally word-based)

Still another method of entry is to use (or acquire) a second language. Some very concrete thoughts are (seemingly) directly translatable. "The box is on the table". But most language expression of any complexity suffers a variety of transmorgrifications moving from the original expression to the translation. Taking things back and forth and trying to reinterpret the expressions in each other's light sort of forces you into the non-verbal realm for a point of reference.

You're almost, by the way, certain to be familiar with NVC... you've just forgotten where to look, being hypnotized by language.

What puzzles ME is that you have this as in issue in the dream state!

Bette: DC = Dream Character


-Montana

Just an off the wall question to anyone. If you lucid dreamed a conversation/exchange of ROTES, or event with "bette" would I ("I" being me, lol, my IUOC) know about it even if I didn't know I knew?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Let me thoroughly muddy the waters for you all by mentioning something that I have discussed before. It is possible for one to have their PMR sense of self, consciousness, modified to exclude the normal internal dialog, the thought stream. There are two women who have written books about this occurring to them. One who sort of freaked out as she felt that her self had disappeared although she continued to act as usual, even though her visual point of view included a view of the back of her own head. One who took it in a religious direction. I also know a woman who experiences this periodically. I have also experienced a great deal of variation in the level of internal dialog, including its complete loss and now it is sort of optional. My point is that clearly there is a lot of 'processing' that goes on within our digital minds and the part, if any, which enters our consciousness is variable to optional. Can you relate any of this to what you are discussing. I feel that processing of a 'rote' is not going to be a fully conscious process within your PMR FWAU.

Ted

That made me think that this is why people have the "same" ideas all over the place. They've received a ROTE, the same ROTE, and just get access to parts of it as they can, perhaps.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

@ Montana: Do you mean to say why do I have this issue while dreaming, or why do I believe it is restricted to NPMR space? Roughly speaking, I use the term OOBE as a special case of lucid dreaming, where one makes an uninterrupted journey from consciously awake, to conscious but sleeping. So dreaming = OOBE relative to the discussion above.

@Bette: Fair question. But as I've been reflecting on this question the last week or two, I become increasingly concerned that my meeting Bette in an OOB state, is highly dependent on my proper interpretation of the scene. Consider it a special case of NVC I guess? Consciously aware, am I gauging the scene correctly, and properly concluding I am meeting up with you? Or is my expectation and desire taking control and presenting that scene?

@Ted: I tend to agree. Seems unlikely that interpreting a ROTE would be a fully conscious act. Enough said.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.