I had an interesting conversation the other night. After waking up and going back to bed in attempt to induce an OBE... I slipped right into what felt like a 3 or 4 hour lucid dream. By the way, "lucid dream","OBE", "astral projection", etc are essentially the same in my book. The key difference from one experience to the next seems to be my level of awareness and focus. The more aware and focused = the more profound the event/exploration. Anyway...

The experience carried on for what seemed like forever. Throughout it, I kept thinking how amazing it was that I had not been yanked back into my sleeping body yet. On an interesting side note, I had the full sensation that I had to pee during the first part of the experience. I was worried that it would cause me to wake up, so I eventually decided to use the "astral" bathroom in our hotel room to see if it helped. It absolutely worked, though for a split second the thought occurred to me that I had wet the bed (as it turned out, I did not). So, the astral bathroom worked, and I went on my way. I had set a specific goal/mission to carry out beforehand, but got lost in the amazement of the experience and my own thoughts. I did remember that I was seeking guidance though. I allowed much of the scenery and setting to flow on its own... I just sort of went along with it. Towards the second half, I began asking every character (being?) that I came across, "is there a message for me from the system?" or something very close to that. Most either said no or acted like I was crazy (or both). Toward the end of the experience though, I was sitting in a kitchen with some other people. There was a built-in flat grill in the middle of the island that we were sitting at. I looked very seriously at a woman sitting down from me, "do you have a message for me from the system?" She balked at first, but then seemed to realized my seriousness in asking this. She "said" something very close to this, though I think it was my voice interpreting what she sent/said: "Do your best to be good (to make good choices) and the system will be good to you (will help you along)". I repeated it back several times to ensure that I had it correctly. There were several slightly different versions to it, but the core message was the same. Then she expressed something else that I couldn't quite understand. It came through as "defend your indulgences" and then as "protect your indulgences". It tried and tried to understand, but just couldn't get it. I can't make any clear sense of it now either. I did try to work through it with the woman by using the flat grill as an example. Not sure why this came to me then... it was all just sort of flowing out and into the conversation. I picked up a utensil and laid it on the grill. It was wet so it sizzled and hissed across the grill. I said something along the lines of: "Is it similar to if I drop this utensil on the grill and decide not to do anything about it; then you pick it up and get burned... or even if you don't get burned. The idea is that I should do something about it because there is the potential that you could get burned?" At that moment, off to the side, a mentally delayed man exclaimed, "YES!" while clapping his hands excitedly. However, the woman gave me a very patient look that said, that is very good, but not what I am telling you. I repeated back the first part of what she had told me several more times and explained to her that I should wake up and write it down so I would not forget. I got up from the chair and jokingly said, "If I only knew how to wake up". The thought came to me to lay down on the floor. At this, I slowly floated down to the floor. As I did, I looked back up at the woman. Now she had a bit of a glow around her and looked to be a younger version of my mom (who is still alive by the way). I eventually reached the floor and after some slight vibrations, woke up in bed.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting and worth sharing. I will have to press on to find out what the second part of the message was. My hunch is that the younger image of my mother was a way to show (or my interpretation of) the origin of the message (ie... a loving/trustworthy source).

As always, there are mounds of uncertainty.

It also interests me how the probability of sharing vs. not sharing such experiences might effect what takes place in the experience. Never easy to tell.

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-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

indulgences - getting that specific wording might lead one to look up how the Catholics used the phrasing (Bette...cover your ears! ; - ))

after going over it myself...it sounds sort of like using corporate level QoC to buy off bad short term karma

if an indulgence is sort of like "karma money", "protecting your indulgences" would be like saying, "keep doing good and avoiding doing bad, so that you don't use up your bank balance", ...or wear out your bicycle helmet...if indulgences are sort of like protection against negative karma from ill deeds.

kinda just a rephrasing of "Do your best to be good (to make good choices) and the system will be good to you (will help you along)"

whereas I think Tom does not ascribe to eye for an eye karma in the hindu sense, I think he ascribes to the view that good intent builds QoC, and better QoC yields a "better" experience of life, not only the actual events it attracts, but as well how you deal with "so called" negative events.

I assume Ted will tune this thought up if it is off the mark.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Don't worry, be happy. Indulge and be good. They are not mutually exclusive unless you are a Catholic (big C out of Love for you Randy). :)
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Interesting Justin, thanks for sharing.

Awesome experience man - Thanks for sharing!

This is great! Thank you!

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-Binary Digital Data Transmission-
01000010011001010010000001001100011011110111011001100101

Thanks for sharing this. its always interesting

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Since this is Justin's subjective experience, I suggest that the proper meaning of indulgences would be the one that he normally considers, not the special definition of the Catholic church unless he has stronger considerations for that terminology than just the ordinary definition. Really, only Justin can figure this out, if he can. After all, he maintained the word indulgences while getting two different verbs to go with it so presumably it is the best word in Justin's experience to fit the thought coming from NPMR. We can pretty well count on the 'woman' not being a Catholic. When one deals with NPMR situations and 'natives', male versus female and physical appearance is an interpretation and a religious category from PMR can be pretty well left out of consideration. Just like Justin's problems with interpreting the environment as a 'kitchen' with tables and chairs and a barbecue grill in a modern kitchen 'island' which are likewise in short supply in NPMR other than within the minds of visitors from PMR who are making best guess approximations in their interpretations.

The first thought is certainly very believable and expectable.

Ted

so day before yesterday, I am poking around the garage and I get this song in my head...

I've been working on the railroad
All the live-long day.
I've been working on the railroad
Just to pass the time away.

Don't you hear the whistle blowing,
Rise up so early in the morn;
Don't you hear the captain shouting,
"Dinah, blow your horn!"

Dinah, won't you blow,
Dinah, won't you blow,
Dinah, won't you blow your horn?
Dinah, won't you blow,
Dinah, won't you blow,
Dinah, won't you blow your horn?

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
Someone's in the kitchen I know
Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
Strummin' on the old banjo!

Singin' fi, fie, fiddly-i-o
Fi, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o
Fi, fie, fiddly-i-o
Strummin' on the old banjo.

Someone's makin' love to Dinah
Someone's making love I know.
Someone's making love to Dinah
'Cause I can't hear the old banjo

anyways, apart from pondering the bizarreness of the song...the kitchen element seemed to stand out mentally in the drama,. and I thought, WTFrig is that about

so now we are here talking about this kitchen dream

in my little model of things, this was me being warned to pay special attention to something kitchen related, at least from this perspective, the oddness of the song, the quality of its persistence in my mind, and the invitation for an interpretation of this mystery.

so its the system saying...this is important...

if all this crap is true...it would make sense that the system would start using this forum channel to provide useful information

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Randy,
So you suspect that "indulgence" could be diet related?

Or is it bad to make love in the kitchen? lol :-)

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Thanks Justin for your experience. I found it interesting that you were able to have such a prolonged lucid experience.

My first adult lucid dream experience (I hadn't had any since childhood) took place a few months ago. In the dream it lasted for what seemed like 2 seconds. I got carried away trying to show my friends it was a dream, took a supersonic flight like Superman into the sky. Bam. It was over. lol.

In my second more recent experience, I remember intentionally slowing down instead of getting over excited. This one lasted longer for what felt like 1 hr or so before I forgot all about being lucid and continued in a regular dream state.

Could you share a little bit about how your dream/lucid experiences have evolved? Like how was it for you in the beginning? And did you notice if certain lifestyle choices affected your experiences?

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Rasa

Thanks for the input and comments all.

Randy, you have really got me thinking about the Roman Catholic meaning of the word.

My hunch is that I just didn't have the experience/knowledge to get the message clearly.

Ted, really great comments. Thank you.

T.Rasa,

I began having lucid dreams after starting a dream journal. Then came frequent sleep paralysis, then some classic "OBE's". These types of experiences have evolved like molasses over the years with many peaks and valleys in terms of frequency. In the beginning, most of the experiences were mind blowing simply because they were so shocking and forced me to rethink everything. Sleep paralysis haunted and terrified me for years. I dreaded it like nothing else. Now I embrace it when it comes (though I do prefer to just sort of slip into an experience).

In terms of lifestyle choices, two things stand out for me personally: having a strong desire to grow (evolve, become better, more loving, etc), and getting plenty of rest. The desire could help for many different reasons: The system might be responding to my desire, I might be putting more effort into instigating such experiences, etc, etc. Never easy to pin point. Getting plenty of rests seems to help because I do not sleep as deeply and I tend to be more present in my dreams and during the awakenings that occur between sleep cycles. If I am tired or under rested, I don't remember squat. I have begun working toward Tom's "consciousness diet", but I don't think that I am far enough along in all of this to notice any substantial differences yet.

P.S. Thundercats was my favorite cartoon as a kid. I hear it is coming back.

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-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

Thanks for the response. I find your posts always interesting and full of value.

And btw, here's a cool vid on the old 80's version of Thundercats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brDmyExbORA

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Rasa