This was freaky to stumble across. I am reading Jung's Man and his Symbols. I'm in the chapter about self. It goes into length about this type of scene and the unconscious/shadow of self. The spectrum of polar opposites in each archetype. Fasinating stuff. My point is one of the pics in the book looks quite similar to your picture. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0440351839/?tag=infjs-20
Don't worry about the heaviness. You have seen and experienced alot. And above that a goofy carefree child (in the most positive way) has always been alongside the pictures you post.
It is such a wonderful thing that you share this dream and new piece of your path. What a wonderful thing, and how hopeful.
Oh yeah, btw...I took this picture from my car while stopped at an intersection this morning...I haven't cropped it or messed with it (feel free if you like!).
It's been a while since I've written about any personal experiences.
Let me start by saying that for close to a year I've had incredible difficulty remembering my dreams.
I know that I have them, but they slip away amazingly fast when I wake, and it seems the more I try to hang onto it the faster they vanish.
That all changed this past week - so many dreams, and my recall seems to have returned as if nothing were ever different.
Last night I had a really good one I thought I would share!
(I welcome anyones' interpretation(s) as well!)
It began with me wandering around a huge, multistoried hospital that was completely empty.
(Hmmmm?)
There was a security guard who told me to leave but I ditched him quite easily and continued walking around, looking for...my friend?
Not sure who this other person was, though he seemed to be someone that I had known for quite some time in my life.
(Some aspect of myself??)
Anyhow, we found each other and instead of a normal "Hey, how're you?" type thing...we started to chase after one another...I guess each trying to get the best of or surprise the other?
Once we finally catch up and stop with all the running, we are just outside the building when he says, "Watch this!".
He raises his arms up to the skies manifesting great bolts and zigzags of lightning in the sky, the bluish hue illuminating everything - however there is no thunder.
Apparently that was my gig as I smiled and acknowledged that yes, it was pretty cool that he could do that, but...
I said, "I've got you beat." and raise my own arms up only to manifest the deepest, most incredible, teeth chattering thunder...it's booming, rumbling, rolling, and shaking everything to an intense degree - you could feel it vibrating in the core of your bones and ribcage.
It was so powerful!
We went back and forth like this for several rounds until it was clear that I had indeed beaten his lightning with my thunder, lol.
Looking up dream interpretations online, they talk about lightning and thunder foreshadowing some sort of uncomfortable change, or intense anxiety about something, anger, danger, etc. - but this was playful, this did not contain any anxiety whatsoever, it was just the opposite in fact, it was very exhilarating and intense, but no fear was there at all.
I find myself disagreeing with this blanket interpretation for those reasons.
If it does mean a change - I feel it would have to be positive in nature, not negative.
Anyhow, after we were done with our "contest", we were walking around with an arm around the shoulder of the other as dear friends might.
When we get to the courtyard in the center of the hospital we meet up with another "friend" who we both know, and also seem to know very well.
The courtyard was quite nice, trees, gardens, benches, etc. surrounded by the four towering walls of the tall building.
We ended up sitting on the ground though, not the bench, with our backs against a cement wall where we seemed to just be shooting the shit, laughing and talking like we hadn't see one another in a while (anything to do with my lack of dream recall for so long?).
The third says, "Now it's my turn", at which point he raises his arms and it starts to pour heavy and big drops of rain - however, it's warm, almost hot rain, very comfortable and relaxing like a hot shower...we cheer his work and sit there enjoying it, getting totally soaked but not caring - we then continue to talk and laugh and joke around with one another.
Then I wake up.
There is all kinds of symbolism in this sucker - from the empty hospital, to these long lost "friends", to the lightning, thunder, and rain.
Any thoughts?
Take a shot!
Wowwwwwwww!!!! What a powerful dream!
Thoughts:
Yes. I agree they were aspects of You.
Lightning = Light
Thunder = Sound
.... two components of Creation.
The third guy was so cool getting Water to come play in a warm embrace of you all!! I can't stop grinning.
and so you know that Water is representative of Emotion but also is one of the Four essence Elements of all creation here.
There's another creation aspect.
So now you know of 3 elements to Creation.
Yep... Getting to know our other selves is the Integration part of the Ascension process. Unity consciousness with them will allow you the ability to co-create with them.
Tone every day. Sing your Song. See the Light sparkling in every cell of your body. Whisper love words to Water. It loves it when we do that.
That's one extraordinary dream Skarekrow. One of the best I've ever seen.
Muah! <3
Many meditators would probably agree that sometimes amazing levels of consciousness can be attained through the practice.
This study goes along with my own thoughts and experiences on reaching "enlightenment" or "shakti" or even the feeling of "oneness" with the release of large amounts of neurochemicals inducing these states of hyper-consciousness during meditation on occasion.
Even the religious-type experience can be correlated with brainwave changes induced by the self through various means such as meditation, prayer, chanting, ecstatic dance, etc. to those by psychedelic means.
The bottom line in any induction method is your brain seems to be working in a more synchronistic and cooperative manner, giving you access to subconscious regions and hyper-connectivity throughout.
Many who have been lucky enough to experience this shifted state of mind report perspectives and insight as well as knowledge not readily available to them in normal waking states.
Some going so far as to suggest whole new realities being revealed.
Keep meditating!
One day it will click into place - it's called a practice for a reason!
Also, I am amazed each and every time I hear of (or have experienced ) how the mushrooms can make such drastic and lasting positive changes to a person who is willing to also put in the work of helping themselves.
Love to you all!
Neuroscience study finds evidence that
meditation increases the entropy of brainwaves
New research suggests that the brain displays a similar pattern of chaotic activity during meditation as it does during the psychedelic experience.
The findings, published in the journal Neuroscience, indicate that meditation is associated with increased brain entropy.
“We are currently witnessing a major psychedelic renaissance, both in science and society.
Psychedelics are being reconsidered as comparatively safe tools to investigate the relationship between brain, mind and consciousness, as well as promising clinical alternatives to treat certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression,” explained study author Enzo Tagliazucchi a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and director of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab.
“I became interested in certain overlaps between the phenomenology (i.e. ‘what it feels like’) of some meditation traditions and the psychedelic state. For instance, both states have been consistently linked to a collapse of self-boundaries and a merging of the subjective and objective sides of reality.”
“My colleague Robin Carhart-Harris, one of the leading figures of the psychedelic renaissance, has put forward a theory of the psychedelic state as a brain state of increased entropy, and I became interested in finding out whether meditation could also be associated with increases in the entropy of brain activity.”
Brain entropy describes the randomness and predictability of brain activity.
Tagliazucchi and Carhart-Harris were previously involved in research which found that people had higher brain entropy — meaning a larger range of potential brain states — under the influence of the psychedelic drug psilocybin.
In his new study, Tagliazucchi and his colleagues recorded participants’ brainwaves to calculate their brain entropy during meditation.
Electrical brain activity and oscillation patterns were measured by electroencephalogram in 27 Himalaya Yoga meditators, 20 Vipassana meditators, 27 Isha Yoga meditators, and 30 individuals with no meditation experience.
The researchers found that Vipassana meditation resulted in the highest entropy increases, with the most salient increases occurring in alpha and gamma brainwaves.
“In spite of not feeling at all like brain activity, your conscious experience is the result of processes that happen in the brain, and because of this there has to be a correspondence between what happens physically in the brain and how that feels in your first-person point of view,” Tagliazucchi told PsyPost.
“The acute effects of psychedelics and some meditative practices both lead to states departing from ordinary conscious wakefulness, and are experienced subjectively as richer in information and capable of sustaining an ample repertoire of contents. Because of this, we hypothesized that meditation would be associated with increased information content (in other words, increased entropy) of brain activity recordings, which was confirmed in the study.”
Future research could use other tools — such as functional magnetic resonance imaging or magnetoencephalography — to examine brain entropy during meditation.
“We need to replicate this result using other techniques to measure brain activity. We also need to probe the conscious experience of the subjects during or immediately after their meditation practice to verify whether time to time changes in entropy correspond to the fluctuating nature of their subjective experience,” Tagliazucchi explained.
"I contend that we are both atheists.
I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours."
This meme is not to scare anyone, because I'm not scared in the damn slightest bit even if I did get sick.
I've worked in medicine my entire working career, I'm not speaking from arrogance, it's statistics.
Please don't worry as much as they are carrying on.
This does however, show the ridiculousness of how things "function" in this country.
Wash your hands...don't touch your face.
I've long been interested in the wide variety of ways in which nonhuman animals (animals) grieve and mourn the loss of others.
I'm pleased to share that a comparative, comprehensive, and valuable review on the topic has been published in a collection of original essays in a special issue of the journal Primates (available online).
The essays are listed below for convenience, along with a few brief summaries, and this information alone shows just how incredibly exciting this field of research has become.1,2
To begin with, Kyoto University professor of psychology Dr. James Anderson, who organized the collection of essays in Primates, offers a thorough review of the ever-growing field of evolutionary and comparative thanatology—the study of death and dying in nonhuman animals—along with a summary of the original essays in a piece called "Responses to death and dying: primates and other mammals."3
He begins:
"Although some definitions of thanatology—broadly definable as the study of death and dying—exclude nonhumans as subjects, recognition of the scientific value of studying how other species respond to sick, injured, dying, and dead conspecifics appears to be growing. And whereas earlier literature was largely characterized by anecdotal descriptions and sometimes fanciful interpretations, we now see more rigorous and often quantitative analysis of various behaviors displayed towards conspecifics (and sometimes heterospecifics) at various stages of incapacitation, including death."
This collection of essays that center on a common theme is unprecedented, and below are some snippets to whet your appetite for more information about a fascinating field of study.
I begin with elephants because an essay in the Washington Post by Jason Bittel titled "An elephant’s story does not end when it dies" covers some of the information that's included about these magnificent, smart, and emotional giants, for whom there are numerous stories about the ways in which surviving individuals grieve and mourn dead companions.
His essay is about Victoria, a 55-year-old matriarch who died in June 2013 and included quotes from the authors of the essay on which it was based that appeared in Primates called "Elephant behavior toward the dead: A review and insights from field observations" by elephant experts Shifra Goldenberg and George Wittemyer.
The discussion of elephants is an excellent place to focus, because similar to other scientists whose work also is covered in the journal, the elephant researchers themselves remain cautious about what we really know about the thoughts and feelings of surviving elephants.
In their research paper, they write: "Elephants show broad interest in their dead regardless of the strength of former relationships with the dead individual. Such behaviors may allow them to update information regarding their social context in this highly fluid fission-fusion society.
The apparent emotionality and widely reported inter-individual differences involved in elephant responses to the dead deserve further study."
In Mr. Bittel's piece, he writes: "The scientists do not conclude from these accounts that elephants mourn, an activity that is often attributed to the species. But their response has a common thread, the authors say. When an elephant falls, the loss is acknowledged and investigated by other elephants, even those unrelated to the deceased. Death means something to elephants, in other words—possibly something emotional." (My emphasis.)
The lead author of the research essay, Shifra Goldenberg, notes, “We don’t know what’s going on in their heads."
On the other hand, another elephant expert, Joyce Poole, whose observations of elephants were summarized in "Elephant behavior toward the dead: A review and insights from field observations," openly attributes emotion to the grieving elephants to the behavior patterns we observed in survivors.
Details about other essays can be found in James Anderson's piece in a section called "Papers in the special issue."
Even if you don't have the time to read the essays themselves, this section is a goldmine of up-to-date information about what we know regarding evolutionary and comparative thanatology and the behavior patterns that various animals show when they interact with dead companions and other individuals.
You can read about a variety of nonhuman primates, including wild gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, horses, and an essay on free-ranging Asian elephants that's the first scientific discussion of responses to dead and dying conspecifics (members of the same species).
While some researchers aren't sure what we really know about what's happening in the heads and hearts of surviving animals when they interact with a corpse and still leave the door open to the idea that elephants and other animals don't mourn the dead, I side with Joyce Poole and others who feel comfortable in claiming that something emotional is going on in their minds.
The detailed descriptions of the behavior of survivors in the essays in Primates and in the numerous references that are provided and elsewhere leave no doubt in my mind.
Research clearly shows that other animals say goodbye to family and friends: Where to from here?
The material covered in the essays is very comprehensive, and it doesn't strain credibility to say that surviving individuals know something novel—something very different—has happened to an individual when they interact with their corpse.
This is so, even if they may not conceptualize death in the ways that many, or most, humans do.
For example, it's possible that the elephants who interacted with elephant matriarch Victoria's corpse didn't know she'd no longer be around, but it also remains possible that they did.
At the moment, we really don't know.
The essays also don't focus on what a dying individual might know about themselves. (See, for example, "Do Dogs Know They're Dying?")
However, while we don't know what they actually—precisely—know or feel about other individuals no longer around, or what they're thinking and feeling about their own demise, available data and countless stories clearly show they know and feel something.
This isn't surprising given solid evidence that the animals being discussed (and many others) have rich and deep cognitive and emotional lives.
Also, the titles, abstracts, and content of the essays in Primates and in many other articles published elsewhere clearly show that something strong and deep is happening to them in response to others' corpses.
The many emails I received in response to "Do Dogs Know They're Dying?" without one exception contained compelling stories that the dogs about whom the people were writing (along with other animals who were brought into the picture) most likely knew they were dying.
Some didn't waver one bit.
I think it's entirely reasonable to keep the door open to this possibility.
To sum up, here's a personal story about my very first encounter with some of the wild elephants at Samburu National Reserve about whom Shifra Goldenberg and George Wittemyer write.
I drove out with a renowned elephant researcher, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, to where some elephants were spending the afternoon, and I could feel something was off, but I didn't know why.
The elephants seemed lost.
They were moping about, walking here and there with their heads hanging down, and I could literally see and feel their sadness.
I asked Iain what was happening, and he told me their matriarch had recently died.
And in stark contrast, just down the road a few kilometers, there was another group of elephants who were clearly feeling OK—just as I had expected them to behave from having seen videos of wild elephants in different locales.
The marked differences between the behavior of individuals in the first and second groups were riveting.
To this day, I still remember how sad I felt for the grieving elephants when, at first, I had no idea why they were behaving as they were.
I've also seen similar behavior in wild coyotes.
The real question at hand is not if other animals grieve the loss of other individuals, but rather, why has grief evolved. We don't have any definitive answers to this question; however, there are a good number of interesting speculations.
The why questions surely are difficult to answer.
However, when I talk with people about grieving and mourning in nonhumans, many are shocked that researchers and other academics still claim that we don't know if they miss and mourn the loss of family and friends.
I side with them and find available data to be very convincing, I feel certain we're not the only occupants of the grief and mourning club.
Stay tuned for further discussions on the fascinating field of study called evolutionary thanatology.
Many bright-minded researchers are keenly interested in responses to death and dying in a wide variety of animals, and there's no shortage of stories from citizen scientists that focus on these topics.
Nothing is lost, and much will be gained by considering different explanations as data and stories pour in.
And as we learn more about what other animals are thinking and feeling about death-related issues, we'll likely learn more about ourselves.
References
Notes
1) Essays in the special issue of Primates and a few brief summaries:
Pettitt P, Anderson JR (2019) Primate thanatology and hominoid mortuary activity. Primates. ("In recent years, a thanatology of primates has become a respectable research topic, and although still sparse, observations among several taxa have shown how complex responses to the dead can be.")
Negrey JD, Langergraber KE (2019) Corpse-directed play parenting by a sterile adult female chimpanzee. Primates. ("Here, we report two cases from Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda, in which a wild adult female chimpanzee (P. t. schweinfurthii) directed parental behaviors at corpses. Both cases involved the same adult female chimpanzee, aged 20–21 years.")
Takeshita RSC, Huffman MA, Kinoshita K, Bercovitch FB (2019) Changes in social behavior and fecal glucocorticoids in a Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) carrying her dead infant. Primates. (We hypothesize that dead infant-carrying may have evolved as a strategy to mitigate stress from infant loss. These findings have implications for our understanding of grief in nonhuman primates and can impact management protocols surrounding deaths in captive social groups.")
Goldenberg SZ, Wittemyer G (2019) Elephant behavior toward the dead: a review and insights from field observations. Primates. ("Elephants show broad interest in their dead regardless of the strength of former relationships with the dead individual. Such behaviors may allow them to update information regarding their social context in this highly fluid fission–fusion society. The apparent emotionality and widely reported inter-individual differences involved in elephant responses to the dead deserve further study. Our research contributes to the growing discipline of comparative thanatology to illuminate the cognition and context of nonhuman animal response to death, particularly among socially complex species.")
Our observations indicate that, like their African counterparts, Asian elephants might experience distress in response to the death of conspecifics, and may have some awareness of death. This information furthers our understanding of the emotional and cognitive complexities of highly social elephants, and contributes to the growing field of elephant thanatology.")
2) More information about death and dying in a wide variety of animals can be seen here.
3) Thanatology (or deathlore) is "the scientific study of death and the losses brought about as a result. It investigates the mechanisms and forensic aspects of death, such as bodily changes that accompany death and the post-mortem period, as well as wider psychological and social aspects related to death."
A very great talk on what we can do to cultivate connection to the spiritual/mystical experience in ourselves and the world.
Dr. Sheldrake is always such a wonderful and entertaining speaker.
(I can relate to rock-climbing and being "present")
Thoughts?
Enjoy!
Science and Spiritual Practices Ways to Go Beyond - 2019 IONS Conference
Keynote addresss at the IONS 18th International Conference Santa Clara, CA July 19th 2019 https://noetic.org/conference/
In "Science and Spiritual Practices" and "Ways to Go Beyond And Why They Work"
Dr Rupert Sheldrake – best selling author of "Morphic Resonance" – examines fourteen areas of spiritual practice
that are personally transformative and have scientifically measurable effects.
· Meditation
· Gratitude
· Connecting with nature
· Relating to plants
· Rituals
· Singing and chanting
· Pilgrimage and holy places
Ways to Go Beyond And Why They Work Seven Spiritual Practices in a Scientific Age https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-ru...
· The Spiritual Side of Sports
· Learning from Animals
· Fasting
· Cannabis, Psychedelics and Spiritual Openings
· Powers of Prayer
· Holy Days and Festivals
· Cultivating Good Habits, Avoiding Bad Habits and Being Kind
Author Biography Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and best selling author of "Science and Spiritual Practices" and "Science Set Free"
(published as "The Science Delusion" in the UK).
At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College
and from 2005 to 2010 was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities.
He is among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders, according to The Duttweiler Institute and was
Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India.
Sometimes I don't have words or anything of substance to add to the conversation. But, I hit the like button so my friends know I'm keeping up and that I stopped by because I love and appreciate them.
Sometimes I don't have words or anything of substance to add to the conversation. But, I hit the like button so my friends know I'm keeping up and that I stopped by because I love and appreciate them.
No one is behind, there is no time-limit or reading list.
I'm digging your music thread BTW!
Good stuff.
People are annoyed by likes?
This forum used to have thumbs up and thumbs down buttons - now that damn down button caused some contention.
lmao
It was far too easy for INFJs to be passive aggressive with one another hahaha.
Hope all is well in your world?
Sending you my love!
I can relate extremely well to these! It's scary to think how everything would have possibly been without depression, who am I without depression...? Especially if suffered from since early childhood like from since being 10 years old little girl. Fascinating. I feel like sometimes I get those tiny glimpses of my real personality through that darkness...
. 
