Science hagiography suggests that Kekulé, Poincaré, Descartes and Ramanujan all cite dreaming as a contributor to their scientific discovery. Tibetan Buddhism has its dream yoga and neuroscience-psychology has an interest in dreams. In order to have a well-defined and fundable project “scientific” study must have a reduction of variables. There must be some graph, pie chart or table of data to discuss with project observables and objectives capable of being bullet pointed and ticked off for funder approval. Scientific ridicule is a risk for those who err from the manifesto.
Over the years I have written to quite a number of people in the academic dreaming world, a few neuroscientists and a few Tibetan Buddhists. The only person who got back to me in a thoughtful manner was an academic Theravada monk from Hamburg university who had some helpful comments to make.
If you are not in the gang, its context cannot apply to you. You are by default Whacko McNutjob. An outsider and loony-tune. They don’t take you seriously and do not get back to you not even with a barge pole.
–
–
To me the “evidence” that my dreaming is totally unprecedented is crystal clear. Nobody else dreams of Buddhist relics and quantum superposition states. Nobody else dreams tens of thousands of words.
I have had a few dreams suggesting dreaming courses and retreat centres.
Andrew Holecek and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche seem to have large exposure for Tibetan dream yoga according to the Delphic oracle Google.
To raise “brand” awareness to a point where there would be reason to run a workshop is not facile. I have no groovy affiliation nor any academic credibility in the subject.
What the fuck, if anything, do I do?
Experience has suggested that any effort is fruitless. Without fruit. There is no point in trying to contact anyone because I do not have a famousinstitution.com email address. There is nothing in it for them, there is no “advantage” in getting back to me.
What I could do is collate the 500 or so dreams that I already have typed up into one “dream book”. That book will be around 200,000 words long. Maybe someone might find it helpful in a few centuries from now.
I strongly doubt that any dream expert, of whatever flavour, could provide a complete cogent explanation for all of these dreams, especially when they are taken together. Even with hand waving nebulousness it would be a push.
It seems that it (I) am simply an anomaly. When you do an internet image search the font of all wisdom suggests dreamers are beautiful young things either with or without AI input. It does not suggest a 100kg fat 60 year old white dude with thinning hair and a buzz-cut.
I am not stereotypical and I don’t have a groovy habit or robes.
The dreaming evidence suggests that I am however not neurotypical…
I return to the question above…
Dreamyoga 