Status
Lost in Northern NSW floods, May 2022
Call number
Collection
Publication
Hampton Roads Publishing Co. (2000), Edition: First Edition, 288 pages
Description
What if you could dream 24 hours a day, even while awake? According to innovative psychotherapist Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., we already do. The seeds of dreaming arise in every moment of the day, in body symptoms, problems, relationships, subtile feelings, interactions, random thoughts, and fantasies. We're getting countless little cues from the unconscious every minute. All are signs from the world of dreaming. And, according to Mindell, we can be in this state of lucid dreaming all day long.In Dreaming While Awake, Mindell shows how to become aware of these "flirts" from the dreamworld and how to interpret their message. The goal, he says, is to be wide awake and lucid 24 hours a day in the midst of this unending dreamfield of information.Practicing 24-hour lucid dreaming: Helps you solve personal, physical, and emotional problems Serves as a preventive medicine for relationships and health, helping you catch the earliest warning signs before they turn into problems Helps resolve conflicts in relationships, families, large groups, corporations, even politicsDreaming is the mystical source of reality, says Mindell. "My goal is to make the Dreaming roots of reality so accessible, so visceral, that your conscious mind will give you back your right to dream."… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member IonaS
I ordered this book because I thought it had something to do with lucid dreaming, though it didn’t really, not lucid dreaming in the conventional sense, and because I love and admire Arnold Mindell.
This must be the deepest book I’ve ever read through to the end, and the most difficult to
The book is about “the Dreaming”. This is the energy behind everything, “the life force of all living beings”. Everyday reality or CR (consensus reality) corresponds to the bright side of the moon, while the Dreaming corresponds to the dark side of the moon. If you ignore the Dreaming background to reality, you marginalize (Mindell’s favourite word) “the deepest unformulated experiences that create your actions in everyday life”.
Every time you ignore sentient (Mindell’s second favourite word) perceptions, i.e. generally unrecognized dreamlike perceptions, you have “overlooked the spirit of life, your greatest potential power”.
I had to look up the word “sentient” in the dictionary, since Mindell kept using it and I kept having difficulty in understanding what he meant by it. According to Webster’s Desk Dictionary, “sentient” means “able to perceive by the senses” or “experiencing sensation or feeling”. I don’t actually think this definition helped me much.
We are told that ignoring the Dreaming is an undiagnosed global epidemic. Most of us suffer from a chronic form of mild depression because we have been taught to focus on everyday reality and forget about the Dreaming background. This depression is the sense that something in your life is missing. We are out of touch with the core energy of life, the Dreaming.
“Dreaming is the origin of all your experiences, including your sense of meaning and your deepest beliefs.”
There are apparently three layers to reality: 1) consensus reality, or everyday reality 2) Dreamland, the area of dreams (I understand the author to mean here the dreams we have when sleeping) and 3) Dreamtime, or the Dreaming (vague feelings and intuitions that can barely be verbalized).
Jung and Freud have spoken of the Dreaming in terms of the subconscious or unconscious mind. To Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, etc, “the sentient Dreaming world is the basis reality”. These “energetic tendencies that dream everyday life into existence” are called by Taoists “the Tao that cannot be spoken”. Chuang Tsu referred to Dreaming as the “Primal Force”, Native Americans talk about “the power of the Great Spirit”, while physicists refer to “quantum wave functions”.
To catch actions and thoughts as they arise from the Dreaming, you must be mindful and concentrated, or lucid.
Dreaming is the basic energy of the universe.
Dreaming happens all the time, just before new thoughts and actions arise.
The author states:
“Because you are Dreaming all day long, I wish to expand the idea of lucid dreaming to mean being awake during Dreaming not only at night but also during the day.” He calls this process “24-hour lucid dreaming”.
Mindell explains that marginalization means taking something that was in the centre of your awareness and placing it in the “margins” of your focus, thereby ignoring it.
He explains that “sentient” refers to the “automatic awareness of subtle, normally marginalized experiences and sensations”
He tells us that objects are continually “flirting” with us and catching our attention. We are anything that catches our attention. The “little you” assumes that feelings about whatever it observes can be marginalized. The “Big You” sees the little you and the things catching its attention as all being potentially valuable. We are what catches our attention. The environment is an aspect of the larger Self.
The above should give you an idea of what this book is about. As stated, it is a deep book, and thus not for everyone. You will need to concentrate on it to extract its meaning.
I found the book illuminating. It challenged me to take a step further in self-development. I would highly recommend it to those who are willing to devote their time and concentration on it and Mindell’s paradigm of the world/universe.
This must be the deepest book I’ve ever read through to the end, and the most difficult to
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comprehend. I had to read most of the sentences several times. Mindell has his own vocabulary for things, and some parts of the book might have been more comprehensible had this not been the case.The book is about “the Dreaming”. This is the energy behind everything, “the life force of all living beings”. Everyday reality or CR (consensus reality) corresponds to the bright side of the moon, while the Dreaming corresponds to the dark side of the moon. If you ignore the Dreaming background to reality, you marginalize (Mindell’s favourite word) “the deepest unformulated experiences that create your actions in everyday life”.
Every time you ignore sentient (Mindell’s second favourite word) perceptions, i.e. generally unrecognized dreamlike perceptions, you have “overlooked the spirit of life, your greatest potential power”.
I had to look up the word “sentient” in the dictionary, since Mindell kept using it and I kept having difficulty in understanding what he meant by it. According to Webster’s Desk Dictionary, “sentient” means “able to perceive by the senses” or “experiencing sensation or feeling”. I don’t actually think this definition helped me much.
We are told that ignoring the Dreaming is an undiagnosed global epidemic. Most of us suffer from a chronic form of mild depression because we have been taught to focus on everyday reality and forget about the Dreaming background. This depression is the sense that something in your life is missing. We are out of touch with the core energy of life, the Dreaming.
“Dreaming is the origin of all your experiences, including your sense of meaning and your deepest beliefs.”
There are apparently three layers to reality: 1) consensus reality, or everyday reality 2) Dreamland, the area of dreams (I understand the author to mean here the dreams we have when sleeping) and 3) Dreamtime, or the Dreaming (vague feelings and intuitions that can barely be verbalized).
Jung and Freud have spoken of the Dreaming in terms of the subconscious or unconscious mind. To Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, etc, “the sentient Dreaming world is the basis reality”. These “energetic tendencies that dream everyday life into existence” are called by Taoists “the Tao that cannot be spoken”. Chuang Tsu referred to Dreaming as the “Primal Force”, Native Americans talk about “the power of the Great Spirit”, while physicists refer to “quantum wave functions”.
To catch actions and thoughts as they arise from the Dreaming, you must be mindful and concentrated, or lucid.
Dreaming is the basic energy of the universe.
Dreaming happens all the time, just before new thoughts and actions arise.
The author states:
“Because you are Dreaming all day long, I wish to expand the idea of lucid dreaming to mean being awake during Dreaming not only at night but also during the day.” He calls this process “24-hour lucid dreaming”.
Mindell explains that marginalization means taking something that was in the centre of your awareness and placing it in the “margins” of your focus, thereby ignoring it.
He explains that “sentient” refers to the “automatic awareness of subtle, normally marginalized experiences and sensations”
He tells us that objects are continually “flirting” with us and catching our attention. We are anything that catches our attention. The “little you” assumes that feelings about whatever it observes can be marginalized. The “Big You” sees the little you and the things catching its attention as all being potentially valuable. We are what catches our attention. The environment is an aspect of the larger Self.
The above should give you an idea of what this book is about. As stated, it is a deep book, and thus not for everyone. You will need to concentrate on it to extract its meaning.
I found the book illuminating. It challenged me to take a step further in self-development. I would highly recommend it to those who are willing to devote their time and concentration on it and Mindell’s paradigm of the world/universe.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2000-09-01
Physical description
288 p.; 8.86 inches
ISBN
1571741879 / 9781571741875
Other editions
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