The Other as an
Aspect of our Truer Self
The Other as an Aspect of our Truer Self
Paper for the
International Association for the Study of Dreams
(IASD) 2014 PsiberDreaming Conference (PDC)
© by Beverly (Kedzierski Heart) D’Urso
When our physical self goes to sleep, our dream self awakens in a dream world. Our dream self acts as one of the characters in our dream, taking on an image of our physical self. We have what feels like very real experiences in this dream world with other dream characters, but if we don’t know that our physical self is dreaming, we don’t sense our connection with our physical self, the dreamer.
We continue having dream experiences until our physical self wakes up out of the dream. Does our dream self now die? Does it really matter, because we now find ourself in another world. From the perspective of our physical self, our dream self, the other dream characters, and the whole dream environment no longer seem to exist. We could say they all dissolved back into our physical self’s mind, although they never really left it.
When our truer self goes to sleep, our physical self awakens in a physical world. Our physical self acts as one of the characters in the physical world, taking on an image of our truer self. We have what feels like very real experiences in this physical world with other physical characters, but because we don’t know that our truer self is dreaming, we don’t sense our connection with our truer self, the dreamer. We continue having physical experiences until our truer self wakes up out of the physical world. Does our physical self now die? Does it really matter, because we now find ourself in another world. From the perspective of our truer self, our physical self, the other physical characters, and the whole physical environment no longer seem to exist. We could say they all dissolved back into our true self’s mind although they never really left it.
Having lucidity while asleep, we sense a connection with our physical self while our physical self sleeps. This connection creates a very powerful and meaningful dream life. Fear disappears because we know that we are more than just our dream body. We view all the characters in our dream, including our own character, as equal aspects of our physical self. We feel that we can direct our dream world by surrendering to the will of our physical self.
Having lucidity while awake, we sense a connection with our truer self, while our truer self sleeps. This connection creates a very powerful and meaningful physical life. Fear disappears because we know that we are more than just our physical body. We view all the characters in our physical world, including our own character, as equal aspects of our truer self. We feel that we can direct our physical world by surrendering to the will of our truer self.
Wherever we experience dream characters, both our physical self and our truer self sleep. If our dream self senses a connection not only with our physical self, as typical in lucid dreams, but with our truer self, then it has access to the physical world because our truer self in a sense dreams up the physical world. In this case, the characters in our dreams could have a connection to others in our physical world because they exist as aspects of our truer self.