East or West?

[muse.v]

I started wondering if there was a better version of "Are you dreaming?" I though it would be interesting to know the psychological differences between that and "Are you awake?" for example. You might say they're just opposites and you'd simply just get the same psychological process with an inverse answer, but i think there are big differences that lie in the interpretation and context, not the definition of the words. When i asked myself "Are you dreaming?" I'm usually thinking of the question as "Are you asleep, and experiencing an REM cycle accompanied by random impulses from the brain interpreted as memories / stories / dreams?" ('Western' interpretation) However, it could be interpreted as "Are you walking through your reality unaware of your life and yourself?" ('Eastern' interpretation) So you could use different phrases like "Are you aware," or simply "Are you lucid?" to get the second interpretation, if thats what you were aiming for. So my question is, perhaps we could find a different phrase that is easier to relate to in an eastern sense, and see if the eastern question works better than the traditional one. If not, we could find a new 'western' phrase and use that just for the sake of change. thanks for reading, i hope that made sense.

[LewisM]

When I think of the question "Am I dreaming" I usually think of times when people say "Hah, you think you will get an A for Science? Youre dreaming!" or something. Connotations are funny things (and useful if used right). Youve got a cool point about an Eastern entretation... I can see what you mean. Personally I dont ask myself 'Am I dreaming?'. I didn't think anyone actually did. If you only ask it within your head, I dont think you would get very good results. Speaking it aloud might be much better. Usually I do an RC such as a watch-check. I think that RCs work on the basis of your connotations. Doesn't matter what your RC is in waking-life... when you are in a lucid dream and in the right frame of mind then the RC will work. So anyway... I really got nothing to say.

[muse.v]

thanks for the reply. hmm. This is strange. You said no one really uses it, just purely RC's? ok, so i think the western interpretation of "Are you dreaming" would be useless because basically its just a yes / no RC, and doesn't have any effect unless you stop to think in an eastern philosophical manner. (because it has minimal relation to increasing awareness and lucidity...) So then an RC would be useless unless you're in the right frame of mind aswell? i'm not even sure what my point is, i'm just sharing some thoughts

[dream-scape]

I pretty much avoid this whole problem by saying things along the lines of (and sometimes all together in this order): "I am dreaming"; "This is what it feels like to be dreaming."; "This is what a dream feels like."; "This is a dream." The purpose of this is to be conscious and mindful of the present moment. If you think about it, even when we are "conscious" throughout the day, we rarely seem to be mindful of the present moment - we are always caught up in the past or the future. So when we mindfully say things like, "This is what it feels like to be dreaming," it forces us to be conscious and mindful of the present. And the idea is that when you replay this in a dream, if you do it in waking life being conscious and mindful of the present, you will become conscious and mindful of the present in the dream (lucid). This is something of a Buddhist methodology. (ok it is a Buddhist methodology; being mindful (of the present) is an important point to Buddhist teachings) It has worked fairly well for me when I have practiced it.