Dreaming and Intuition are they linked?

In terms of MBTI, I have a clear INFJ preference. I have very high scores for N intuition and J judging. This means that I am a bit of time freak, I like to be early and get things done well before any deadline. It has come as a shock to some that I am very introverted.

My dominant function is introverted intuition, which means that few get to see what goes on internally. Occasionally people are very surprised at what pops out. I have some skill in envisioning, so called big picture thinking, but pictures are generally 2d so that description is limited.

Intuition comes in various degrees from knowing the next number in a number sequence puzzle to having a profound insight into the psyche or soul of others based on little “evidence”. The first case of intuition here is an extension of logic. The second is an unexplainable knowing.

 Intuition can be re-written inner-tuition.

Where a kind of learning happens as if by magic. If I cannot solve a problem, I leave it to my background processors intentionally and then a few days later a solution or a new way of thinking comes into mind, ta-da!

Dreaming, passive dreaming at night, does not come from outside. So, we could call this internal process, intuition, particularly if insights arrive in a dream. Dreaming is a subset of intuition.  

I personally trust my intuition and dreams more than what is said in overt and verbal conversation or even text. If there is divergence, I trust my inner-tuition over what is presented or spun. Being introverted I don’t let on.

In esoteric psychology some dreams can be termed “dramatizations of the soul” in which the soul is trying to assist the mundane being. You can’t get more inner inner-tuition than that.

Statistically INFJ is the least common personality type. If you know one hundred people then only one of them is INFJ. {Of course, INFJs cluster in certain professions}. Many of us report problems fitting in with society and the square peg in a round hole is a depiction of the INFJ. There are lots of different visualisations of INFJ because INFJs often like metaphor and allegory.

Because INFJs are interested in things like psychology, then it follows that many may have an interest in passive nocturnal and active lucid dreaming.

Some dreams are internal dialogue and daily angst carried into sleep. I’ll suggest that at certain depths dreaming is a form of inner-tuition or intuition. There are similarities to heightened meditative states and conscious nocturnal dreaming.

The trick is learning how to remember your dreams and transfer them into the so-called waking “reality” of life quotidian.

Commentary on my Tibetan Themed Dreams

The first thing to say is that one cannot un-have dreams of high vividness. They make an impression on life and in a sense, they change one. The dreams collected under this category were all markedly vivid.

My dreams have pointed to a possible three Buddhist incarnations, one Indian, one Japanese and one Thai. In one case there is a named individual. An incarnation of said individual has been recognised by the Tibetan Buddhists in exile as a tulku incarnation.

 What, if anything, does one do with these dreams and that “knowledge”?

I’ll speculate that if anyone sits down and reads all these dreams in one go it will have a weird effect on them, it will twist their melon so to speak. I’ll speculate that I am probably unique in having dreams about Vajrayana, quantum and patents.

In 2009 I gave a short course at “The Academy of Dreams”, a venue run by a psychotherapist. There I met a young man Charlie Morely who is interested in Lucid Dreaming. He invited me to talk at the Kagyu Samye Dzong in London, which I did. I subsequently attended two group empowerments by Chöje Akong Rinpoche in White Tara and Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche. To my eyes they were fairly shamanic rituals.

I had the Bakula dream before any physical plane contact with Tibetan Buddhism. I had not heard of Bakula nor the sixteen arhats. Being an ex-academic, I discussed this dream with an academic Buddhist scholar monk in Germany and a monk at the local Thai forest Buddhist centre. I sent it off to a senior Tibetan Kagyu person. The return comment was that it was a nice dream, end of.

Although the search for Tulku incarnations within the Tibetan community employs dreams and visions, they come from within the Sangha and not without. I am not in the club.

All of this is preceded by a dream with Djwhal Khul in it. He is supposedly the author behind many of the Alice Bailey books and therein he says he is an abbot of a lamasery near Shigatze Tibet, from time to time.

“Don’t worry it was just a dream…”

To me these dreams seem significant and point at something of a perhaps wider import. However, my prediction is that any outcome is extremely unlikely. A hairy arsed Welshman in Brittany is somehow wrong and not malleable.

I have had numerous other dreams which say that I will not be believed. Aside from the theme of “somebody else’s huge mess” it is right up there, near top, in the recurrence rate.

So far, I have had no dream or vision of me in a Tibetan life. But I am dreaming in senior and important figures in Tibetan Buddhism. In particular I feel affinity for the relative anarchy of Chögyam Trungpa.

I cannot rule a Tibetan life out, yet. The likelihood is low in my estimation. In ~2005 I had a series of visions of me as a Buddhist monk/priest with Om Mane Padme Hum tattooed in Sanskrit on my arm. {The Tibetan script is now more prevalent than the Sanskrit on the internet, I checked and it was Sanskrit.} I was however unable to see the colour of robe. They were a waking dream. I even gave lectures on Chemical Reactions Kinetics to around 100 students whilst having them in perceptual overlay.

To discuss this with university physical science academics at the time would have had a lead balloon effect and perhaps a recommendation for prompt psychiatry. Past-life recall is considered a tad whacko in that peer group.

My current hypothesis is that I will eke out the rest of this life here doing gardening and perhaps a bit of blogging. I am no big cheese and although I have had the phenomena of these dreams in practical terms there is little that I can do with them. Their impact remains upon me and the wife.

Any dreams incoming may change that hypothesis. I am currently working with a dream from March which suggests that I have a human puzzle to solve before anyone will listen to me…