Nightmares, Suffering (Part 3) and Michael Singer
May 5, 2024
8 min read
•
Newsletter
{Body}
Nightmares are good for us?
These are quotes taken from Medical Medium, as they do a better job explaining than I can. If you want more on the subject sleep, check out his Thyroid Healing book.
“Dreams are the ultimate mystery—they can’t be weighed or measured. What are they telling us? What do they mean?
Especially, we question the bad dreams. What’s behind the nightmares, the anger dreams, the frustration dreams, the stress dreams, the sweat dreams, the wake-in-the-night-screaming dreams? How can we make them go away?
Once you understand what’s behind those bad dreams, you won’t want them to go anywhere. “Bad” dreams are our way of healing.
When we’re awake, we’re not supposed to be breaking down the walls of our emotional hurt. The time to process that pain is in our sleep.
When we’re not conscious, the emotional walls come down so the soul can do its cleanup and repair work. This means that all sorts of difficult emotions get stirred up, and they work themselves out through our dreams. If this didn’t happen, frustration, anger, fear, betrayal, guilt, and humiliation would build up and up within us until they overpowered the strength of the walls holding them in place and took over our waking lives.
Instead, our dreams release them. This nightly housecleaning helps us face what’s going on in life without becoming scarred by it.
Even though we think it’s the opposite, bad dreams rejuvenate us. They remind us that there are people, places, and things in our lives that may need some attention so we can move on. Bad dreams don’t close doors; they open them.”
{Mind}
The way out of suffering?
This is Part 3 of 4 on a series about suffering. Click to read Part 1, Part 2, or click here to read the full essay, published in December 2022.
To summarize the problem of suffering:
Desire for either unpleasant sensations to end, or for pleasant sensations to begin leads to suffering.
Desire is a thought formed from the Unknown.
Thoughts trick the brain into creating pleasant and unpleasant sensations in the body.
Pleasant sensations in the body always give way to unpleasant ones.
Can you see the dilemma? Everything is vibrating (including thoughts) → attachment to a sensational vibration causes suffering → and desiring not to attach to thoughts is yet another vibrating thought that yields more sensations in the body!
I GET IT, ETHAN — I’M LIVING IN PURGATORY! JUST TELL ME WHAT THE SOLUTION IS ALREADY!
Here is the solution: Awareness. Observation. Witnessing. Presence. Emptiness. Consciousness. Mindfulness. Knowing. There are many words for it.
Vibration can’t be the only thing in the Universe, because that which is Aware of vibration is not vibrating! That which is Aware of suffering does not suffer!
“I am overweight.” Are you overweight, or are you Aware of being overweight? You can’t be both. “I own a toothbrush.” Do you own a toothbrush, or are you Aware that you own a toothbrush? You can’t have both. “I am reading a newsletter about suffering.” Are you reading an essay about suffering, or are you Aware of reading a newsletter about suffering? You can’t do both.
Confusing? Yes. Unhelpful? Not in the slightest.
Awareness is the answer! Awareness is the way out!! Awareness is the end of all suffering!!!
Here is the testable hypothesis written out: if you are fully Aware of an unpleasant sensation, then it will cease to be a source of suffering, because you no longer have preferences for what happens to it. That which is Aware of preferences have none.
Stay tuned next week for Part 4 of 4 where I’ll make all of this practical for you.
{Soul}
Thoughts are an infinite web of interconnecting nodes that reinforce the validity of one another.
That is, your thoughts are actually made of other thoughts.
Consider the word “sharp,” as an example.
When you analyze its meaning in your own mind, you find that “sharp” is directly connected to other words such as “pointy” or “dangerous,” and mental images such as knives and nails.
Said differently, the idea of “sharp” only exists because it lies on a dense net of other related ideas.
This basically means that thinking about anything will always yield more thoughts about it — an infinite rabbit hole.
Your mind can jump from cow → milk → white → snow → sunshine → grass and back to cow in less than a second, forever looping on new combinations of reticulating concepts.
Luckily, we needn’t be trapped in these insane mental spirals any longer than we like.
The simple act of observing a thought is enough to disintegrate the entire network, freeing you up to experience thoughtless states such as peace and joy.
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