Friday, May 5, 2017 Surreal Happiness & Focus

Woke up at 2 a.m., time to take my antibiotic, stayed up and started talking to Dad, Mom, Reed, Karl, Jamie, Donnie, Lynette and Corey (as well as Irene).  I’ve invited them all to hang out at the house with us and watch all the TV they want. I’m honesty astonished at how much love I feel in my heart and how that “connection” sensation is now affecting me now that I’ve better articulated what it is in my own mind – it’s a sense of ecstasy, as if all of the beautiful emotions a human is capable of was in one sensation – like the white light before it is broken down into individual colors.  It’s mind blowing how happy I am right now.  It seems surreal when compared to a few days ago.  Have I become bipolar?

I realized that there was a huge burden that was lifted from me that I hadn’t really realized was there – my worry and hurt about Irene suffering and being in a situation where she couldn’t do almost anything she wanted to do.  How joyful it makes me that she no longer has to endure that failing body and its limitations and pain, and she no longer has to fight through her panic and fear about not being able to breathe, and not worry about her shoulder pain. I am so happy for her!!!!!

Robert and Mike from across the street put the new green storm door in.  It look so great, works great, it’s totally awesome. 

I’m starting to understand something.  To set this up, let me contextualize a bit. First, when I used to practice lucid dreaming (a means of realizing when you're in a dream when asleep) , it was hard to hold on to the knowledge that you were lucid dreaming once you figured it out. Something could distract you in the dream and then all of a sudden you’re back in regular dream mode, doing whatever the dream tells you to do, acting however the dream dictates and feeling however the dream dictates. 

Second, when I used to meditate years ago, I remember feeling disconnected from the world as my attention would be focused on the spiritual via a mantra or prayer, mindful breathing and visualization.  I could go days where the world seemed only semi-real and I felt more spiritual, centered and calm regardless of what was going on. Then, something would happen in the world and I’d get involved, and the next thing I know I hadn’t meditated in weeks and it was like coming up for air after diving in and forgetting I was in the water.  This experience matched many spiritual and religious teachings on the nature of the physical world in relationship to the spiritual.

This world (although quite real) is like a dream compared to the spiritual, and our physical body and some of our psychology is more like a dream avatar.  If you do not keep your focus on the spiritual, you can be swept up in the flow of the dream, forgetting who you are, forgetting vital information and important knowledge, doing whatever the dream dictates, even becoming someone other than who you are. In dreams you can become many different people in a sequence of changing events and be totally carried away by the events and sensations of the dream.

Intellectually, we may know there is a greater spiritual realm where all of this pain and suffering and drama is not experienced, but unless we focus on that knowledge and begin "lucid" living, we will continue to be swept away in this world. Being swept up in the dream may be fine for in many instances because the dream is not so bad and even quite enjoyable; but when the dream is taking you towards a nightmare it's important to keep in mind that it isn't the final reality, that in the end you will wake up.  Being able to have this kind of "lucid" living focus can take the edge off of difficult situations and ease the suffering.

I’m starting to see this because I notice that when I interact with people or do job work or yard work, it’s easy to slip into the standard dream identity where I’m feeling pain and hurt as if Irene is “gone”, even though I know she is not. It feels as if I’m fulfilling a role that the current physical "dream" expects or is the standard pattern.  I start worrying that I’m losing my ability to “lucid dream” in this life and stay aware that Irene hasn’t gone anywhere, that she’s with me, that we are soul-mates and will always be with each other.  Staying aware that the “waking world” exists and that I don’t have to worry about these dream events or how things appear here is key to moving forward - keeping the mind focused as much as possible on what I know is real and not on what the physical world tries to convince me is real.  There is far more to our existence than the physical.