Distortions and Dreams

The event description for this edited audio version from a recent Insight Timer live talk Distortions and Dreams:

A 15 minute side glance at making New Years resolutions by an exploratory barraging of the barriers of distortions and the ups and downs of (some) dreams.

While the local church bells at 6pm are still audible, I’ve edited out most of me reading back the audience comments and my responses to them. My original notes are more or less as follows:

• Intent and Disclaimer: could all be enlightening, rubbish or anywhere in between. A sharing to discerned for oneself. Take what’s helpful and discard the rest
• Inspired by a comment asking what’s so bad about dreams. I responded by addressing distortions

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Dream definition:

	1. a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep

	2. a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal

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• What is/are a dream/dreams?
  • Daydreams?
  • Lofty goals?
  • Nightly/sleeping phenomena?
  • Relationship to sexual activity?
  • American Dream (will address in a moment)
• Don’t mean MLK “I have a dream” which is more of a vision — we need more visions and resolves and betterment
• English language is tricky
• Pop culture:
  • nightmares
  • dream a little dream for me
  • in your dreams
  • dream on, dream away
  • living the dream
  • make your dreams come true
• Dream interpretation — psychological side
• Awakening on the spiritual path like waking up out of a dream.
• “The only thing we don’t wake up out of is love”
• Dream within a dream preferable to “everything is an illusion” (run into that tree at full speed and tell me it is an illusion)
• Two Truths
• “American Dream” as justification for distortions? (Not an invalidation)

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Distortion definiton:

	1. pull or twist out of shape

	2. the action of giving a misleading account or impression

	3. change in the form of an electrical signal or sound wave during processing

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• Perhaps distortion is another facet of the Pali word Moha — often translated as delusion (not in psychiatric sense) or ignorance. Moha can be not recognizing the other two poisons of greed and ill-will.
• Ever been convinced something is one way then find out it’s not?
• Distortion synonyms and the like : funhouse of mirrors, counterfeit, inversions, reversals, twisting, misrepresentation, partial truths, deceptions, unreal(ity)
• Negentropy, retro-causation but then into metaphysics, physics of reality constructions and systems, but how much of this leads toward stress and how much away from it?
• Teaching of the arrow
• How to address: recognition, observation, investigation, questioning, study, discernment, knowing, truth, reality, wisdom
• How are dreams made? How do they come about? What is the level, degree, amount of attachment to each?
• Being enthusiastic about whatever comes our way in life as it can be way stranger (in a good way) and way more wonderful and beautiful than anything we could dream up
• Why pick apart dreams and distortions? Wouldn’t it be easier, safer and more comfortable not addressing truth?
• ‘Truth is a reliable stream of light, faithfully guiding your journey of unraveling, only able to dismantle the parts that cannot proceed any further. When awakening strips us down to our core, even loving ourselves can sometimes feel too much. This is when we shift into the silent “I love you’s” where each breath you take infuses all sentient beings with a love always transmitted, even without being intended or spoken.’

---

The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

[Music]

easiest way

[Music]

wellness and welcome to this short vlog

called distortions and dreams the

description i have for is a 15 minute

side glance at making new year’s

resolutions by an explanatory barraging

of the barriers of distortions and the

ups and downs of some dreams that’s

quite a mouthful and doesn’t really roll

off the tongue but

what i’m getting at with this is you can

make new year’s resolutions but this is

just going to be informing those right

i’m not going to address that directly

that’s what the sideways glance my

intent and disclaimer for this is this

could be all very enlightening it can be

rubbish or anywhere in between

i’m what i’m doing is i’m just sharing

some things that came across to me on

these topics and you have to discern for

yourself and take what’s helpful and

relieve the rest this was originally

inspired by comment on insight timer

danny kmu does a thing every saturday

forgot where exactly what happened but

it was like he was mentioning his master

shifu that only sleeps like four hours a

night maybe he was talking about being

really rested

that

dreams weren’t really necessary in

certain thing and certain parts of sleep

there’s a deep dreamless sleep

supposedly and somebody chimed in and

said well what’s wrong with dreams

something around those lines and i

responded to that by well you know it’s

a tricky english language there can just

be

distortions is what i think denny might

have meant

so what is a dream the dictionary

definition of it is a series of thoughts

images and sensations occurring in a

person’s mind during sleep it can also

mean a cherished aspiration ambition or

a deal

normally wondering about this you know

what is a dream what are dreams what are

daydreams what are lofty goals does it

mean if you have a dream does that mean

a lofty goal what about nightly sleeping

phenomenon things that happen during the

night does that consider a dream how

does

these relate to our relationship with

sexual activity and of course we’ve got

the all-famous american dream right so

i’ll address that back in a moment again

and i don’t mean here by martin luther

king juniors i have a dream which is

actually more of a vision and we need

more of these peaceful visions and

resolves and betterment in the world and

so again the english language is tricky

on this

what we mean by dreams you know in pop

culture we have things like nightmares

dream a little dream for me in your

dreams dream on dream away living the

dream making your dreams come true right

and these go into like advertising

and then on the psychological side we

have dream interpretation right one

thing i was really good about noticing

uh when i was

writing down dreams in a journal was the

day residue this is something i could

recognize fairly easily is

what is the correlation between the

dream material in our everyday waking

life usually would be something that

happened during that day and then that

would be almost instantly recognizable

as showing up in the dream sometimes

just almost directly or literally but

other times it was it’s really

noticeable where that could have came

from from what happened during the day

and then we have this whole notion of

awakening on the spiritual path like

waking up out of a dream and i really

like this

notion it’s almost like a dream within a

dream too it’s even a better metaphor i

feel and there’s a saying that the only

thing we don’t wake up out of is love

dream within a dream i really prefer

even over

the saying in spiritual circles that oh

everything is just an illusion

go take a running

start at that tree

run headlong into it and then tell me

it’s an illusion right so this comes

into the two truths so the two truths

are basically conventional reality

what’s true in conventional reality and

then ultimate reality most of us until

we realize awakening enlightenment we’re

dealing with conventional truth

conventional reality ultimate reality

can only really be pointed at hinted at

it’s kind of ineffable there’s really no

way to directly

speak and reveal ultimate truth that i’m

aware of okay so now back to the

american dream right first off there’s i

wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with

this or um ultimately criticizable it’s

respecting everybody’s decision

by this i mean you know the house the

car

the job the partner and the kids wake up

go to work and repeat we’ve seen that

some of this has been on pause during

what we’re going through here you know

my folks have actually done this and it

kind of served them well anyway at least

now that they’re retired right so the

the planning for retirement and the

retirement and what i want to do about

this is wonder if this american dream is

kind of a justification for distortions

what do we mean by distortions and i

looked up the dictionary definition here

and it says pull or twist out of shape

the action of giving a misleading

account or impression change in the form

of electoral signal or sound wave during

processing so the up focus more on the

first two although it’s interesting here

i am online and has to deal with

electrical signal

sound wave during processing in the poly

language mohaw

is the word and it’s often often

translated as delusion or ignorance and

it’s not in the psychiatric sense of

delusion right and it’s one of the three

poisons so it’s basically not

recognizing the other two poisons which

are greed and ill-will and that’s one of

them another example i like have you

ever been convinced of something that

it’s got to be one way you’re just

completely

certain that something is one way and

then later on you find out it’s not that

way at all or maybe it’s not exactly

like that at least i’m sure that’s all

happened to us but it’s not really our

fault it’s maybe there’s been misleading

accounts giving something’s been twisted

distorted out of shape so we don’t get a

clear picture of what it really is the

other kind of synonyms for this is like

a fun house of mirrors right you go in

there and you kind of see a

representation of what a reflection

looks like but it’s very distorted you

know it might have a huge head or a feet

might be huge or some parts missing or

whatever counterfeit is another word for

distortions inversions

reversals twisting misrepresentation

partial truths

deception and unreality so and then we

go into this into notions that i won’t

spend too much time on this neg entropy

and retro causation so usually we have

entropy right things are decaying are

then causation cause and effect goes one

way but retro causation would mean the

exact opposite so these can be looked up

this gets into meso metaphysics and

reality constructions and systems

but you know how much of this looking

into it if you want to actually would

lead towards stress and how much would

lead away from it you know the

historical buddha there’s a simile the

arrow and the reason he never really

talked much about metaphysics even

though he knew a lot of it was that it’s

like a man getting shot with an arrow

and before he wants it pulled out he

wants to know what was the arrowhead

made out of who fletched the shaft what

bird did the feathers come from and by

the time you figure all that stuff out

you’re already dead from the arrow he

addressed suffering and the cause of

suffering that’s possible to end

suffering and the way out of it so how

do we address these things that are

distorted in life maybe we’re being

presented with something that’s not

entirely accurate or

you know it’s twisted or only partial

truth is given for all kinds of

different reasons this is where we get

into

how to address this with recognition

observation investigation questioning

study

discernment

and knowing

truth reality and wisdom so it’s a lot

thrown out there this is uh one way to

be able to penetrate into a truer nature

of our life experiences and

circumstances

and information we’re presented with and

in order to make better choices too so i

mean when we’re just looking at dreams

here this is really kind of an illusory

ephemeral

thing right here’s just some questions

that are at least on that it’s

answerable by me how are dreams made

where do they come from how do they come

about i’m talking about nightly

phenomena that we can remember when we

wake up and what is the level

degree an amount of attachment to dreams

sometimes we want them to

never experience anything like that

again sometimes we just want more and

more or sometimes we’re just kind of

like

dazed and overcome by them some of them

can be quite beautiful some of them can

be nightmarish but the underlying

reality behind them how does it happen

where these phenomena come from you know

how do we experience them what can we do

what is our view and perception of them

how to respond to them if any do we put

too much importance do we put not enough

importance would it be okay to dream

or would it be okay not to dream one of

the explanations where dreams come from

that they’re something higher than

ourselves but there’s also the other

perspective where

dreams are kind of like a distortion in

themselves there may be other things

influencing us or they might

just on a psychological level that might

be debris and things that we’re trying

to heal from and

emotionally clear

dreams are one way of i don’t know

mixing things together in order to get

of our attention to see it a different

way in order to clear it i wanted to

just leave with this quote here

answering these other last questions i

have so why even pick apart dreams and

distortions wouldn’t it just be easier

and safer and more comfortable not to

address truth and this quote comes from

matt khan truth is a reliable stream of

light faithfully guiding your journey of

unraveling only able to dismantle the

parts that cannot proceed any further

when awakening strips us down to our

core even loving ourselves can sometimes

feel too much

this is when we shift into the silent i

love yous

where each breath you take infuses all

sentient beings with the love

always transmitted even without being

intended or spoken

i wish you all

a lovely perhaps dreamlike

rest of your day afternoon evening

or night and

bye now