Have any of you ever had a dream where it is so vivid and long that it plays out like a movie and you recall everything when you wake up? I just woke up from such a dream..and everything in it seemed completely sideways and abstract, but it made perfect sense when I woke up and realized the symbolism behind everything in my dream.
The gist of the dream is that I was living sometime in the future and seeing how my life would be depending on the path I took..this path was a little disturbing at times, but I knew everyone in my dream, we hung out and talked in great detail about many things, except we were all noticeably about 10 years older. All of the locations were different, however..and I could see an aura coming from every living thing (sometimes it was good, sometimes bad, sometimes creepy). This aura is hard to explain to a lot of people...it has a lot to do with intuition and being in-tune with everything going on around you. Anyhow, especially after an acid trip, I notice my intuition rise to an incredible level to where I am often finishing sentences of other people (either verbally or in my mind), even ones that I may have just met that moment... and after dreams like this one, it seems like my intuition is also much higher usually for some days afterwards.
Does anyone else write down their dreams? I usually don't recall my dreams, but maybe once a month or so I will have a very vivid or lucid dream that will make complete sense..and will write down every detail I recall when I wake up...there is always a lot of symbolism in them and I sometimes learn quite a bit about my ego and own feelings, and really put my life into perspective...like what goals I should strive towards and often I'm confronted and must deal with issues within my dreams, then play them out in real life. It is like I'm learning from someone else, but in reality I suppose it is just my higher conscious mind (I seem more conscious in dreams than in reality many times) telling me these things..because when I'm awake, there is the body load to deal with and feeling trapped in the physical realm which somehow hinders my consciousness to a degree where I cannot think clearly/rationally, but base everything on some past even...
Now, when I'm under the influence of sth (LSD), I can think more clearly because it is just like the feeling of being in this type of higher consciousness dreamworld, except that I'm actually VERY alert, more physically able (body feels light or weightless, like in a dream), and psychologically in tune with myself and everyone around me. Any anxiety, personal hang-ups, ego/attitude, or petty inhibitions (not valid ones) go out the window in this state of mind..like if one were deep in a trance and in tune with everything..all tension melts away, all problems have a clear solution...humbled by the complexity of the universe, my ego is silenced..and I'm now able to lead a productive meaningful existence instead of a destructive and pointless one.
I'm not very familiar with transcendental meditation or how monks reach this state...but I have met quite a few people who have done LSD (only once or twice, in some cases) and had this kind of revelation about themselves and the world around them, like a re-birth..many of them were atheists but are now spiritual or Buddhists. And I'm greatly intrigued by this connection. Obviously LSD chemically-alters certain neurotransmitters in the brain, so that is something physically evident to explain this feeling of revelation or re-birth. But what about practising meditation? Does it alter some part of the brain in, say, devout monks who practice it daily..or is it merely placebo? I wonder if there are any conclusive studies on this.
Peace.