Dream exploration

“Man explored the physical world in the dreaming state long before he explored it physically.  Such dreams gave him the assurance that other lands existed outside of his own, and spurred him onward into those physical expeditions in which the species has always taken a particular delight.

“A man or woman might [be] while dreaming suddenly in strange territory, looking at the sky from a different viewpoint, with, say, a familiar river nowhere in sight, and with a mountain where ordinarily a plain might be.  This was in a way as startling an experience as it would be to you to find yourselves on some distant planet.  (You do, for that matter, explore space in the same fashion, and on at least some occasions your own “visitors from outer space” are dream travelers from other dimensions of reality.)

“In such a fashion, man learned the location of the oceans upon the earth – or at least was given the assurance that such large bodies of water existed, along with clues as to their locations, and the placement of the stars overhead.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Session 934)

We don't perceive the consciousness within a star

“All action is creative and ever-occurring – the only way I can get these ideas across to you.  All energy is personified.  When you look at atoms and stars you are looking at simultaneous action. You are looking into the past and into the future at the same time, as you think of it.  From the landscape of the brain you are trying to look at the landscape of the mind.

“You do not perceive the consciousness within the self.  You do not perceive the consciousness within a star, either – yet the star is the physical materialization in your reality of another kind of consciousness, and all you perceive of it.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, from Note 2, a session in 1974)

Violence

“Violence will always be used creatively.  You cannot be destructive even when you try. Beyond that, however, in the meantime the violence that you do, you do to yourself.  You are a part of All That Is – of all the nature that you know and experience, of the world that you know, and even a part of the world that you know that you do not like.  If you rip off the wing of a fly, you are yourself less.  If you purposefully, now, or with malice, step upon an ant, then to the extent of your malice you step upon yourself all unknowing.  Violence will always be used creatively, but if you do not understand this – and at your present rate of development you do not – then any violence is violence against yourself.  This applies to each of you, for when you think in terms of violence you think in terms of malice or aggression.  Despite all man does, he cannot really work any destruction – but while he believes in destruction, then to that extent he minimizes what he is, and must work harder to use creativity.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Note 2, Class Session 3 November 1970)

Divine Creativity

“All That Is creates its reality as it goes along. Each world has its own impetus, yet all are ultimately connected.  The true dimensions of a divine creativity would be unendurable for any one consciousness of whatever import, and so that splendor is infinitely dimensionalized, worlds spiraling outward with each ‘moment’ of a cosmic breath; with the separation of worlds a necessity; and with individual and mass comprehension always growing at such a rate that All That Is multiplies itself at microseconds, building both pasts and futures and other time scales you do not recognize.  Each is a reality in itself, with its own potentials, and with no individual consciousness, however minute, ever lost.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Note 1, Session 747)

One of the main purposes of dreaming

“One of the main purposes of dreaming, therefore, is to increase man’s pleasure, which means to increase the quality of living itself.  Dreams are mental work and play combined, psychic and emotional rich creative dramas.  They also involve you in the most productive of enterprises as you begin to play with versions of events that are being considered for physical actualization, as on a personal level you “view” the probable events which your family, tribe, organization, community and country will actualize.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Session 933)

Seeking pleasure

“Psychologists often speak of the needs of man.  Here I would like to speak instead of the pleasures of man, for one of the distinguishing characteristics of value fulfillment is its pleasurable effect.  It is not so much that man or nature seeks to satisfy needs, but to exuberantly, rambunctiously seek pleasure – and through following its pleasure each organism finds and satisfies its needs as well.  Far more is involved in the experience of life, however, than the satisfaction of bare needs, for life is everywhere possessed with a desire toward quality – a quality that acknowledges the affirming characteristics of pleasure itself.

“In your terms, there is a great pleasure to be found in both work and play, in excitement and calm, in exertion and rest, yet the word “pleasure” itself has often fallen into disrepute, and is frowned at by the virtuous.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Session 933)

Television News replaced dream exploration

“[Today] for news or for advice you watch your morning television news, which provides you with a kind of manufactured dream that to some extent technologically serves the same purpose.  Instead of sending cameramen and newspaper people to the farthest corners of the earth, early man sent out aspects of himself to gather the news and to form it into dream dramas.  Oftentimes much of the material did not need to become conscious: It was “unconsciously” acted upon, turned directly into action.  Now such dreams simply act as backup systems, rising to the fore whenever they are needed.  Their purpose was and is to increase the value fulfillment of the species and of the individual.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment Vol 2, Session 933)