PasQuale asked to hear more about the Dreamhackers (a group of Russian dreamers) and their discoveries. I have some information that has been shared before on other forums. I’ll post it here in installments. Please note I DID NOt write the stuff in brackets, some other guy did that. Here goes:
"I (someone on some other forum) noticed that someone wrote that they didn’t “understand the
Dreamhackers”, so I’m posting these edited posts to hopefully make
clearer what they are actually saying, and also in the hope that they
may show themselves again, and answer the points raised [bracketed]
in the edit.
#1
"Hi.
First, please forgive me for my weak knowledge of the english
language, and for the fact that I am using an auto-translator. You
may know that in Russia there is a group of strong dreamers
called “Dreamhackers”. If you have a interest in their achievements,
I can tell you about them. This will be something new for you. [Not
for everybody] But for now, I’ll give you a small fragment from the
ultimate source.
Sergei Izrigi (group leader):
Zero danger level.
Preliminary analysis.
Once upon a time there was a crazy hacker who got an idea to
“break
in” to the Dreaming world. He was an eccentric type-a wild
mix of Don
Quixote, Baron Munchausen- a fortunate adventurer who managed to
come
across one and a half million dollars of “easy” money! His
name was
Sam Gorbunkov. Or, maybe it was Sergei Izrigi? What difference does
it make now?
He organised six dreaming clubs, in Minsk, in Riga and in four major
Russian cities. The guy hired 5 advertising agents and 16
psychoanalysts who enticed people to the clubs and conducted
questioning according to a method which was specially developed for
the research. The conversations were recorded on audio and videotape,
and then the tapes were sent to 6 analytical groups. 41 retired
military analysts compiled their fancy classifications, extrapolated
common patterns, and sent the results to their employer.
Those were the great days-insane interest in the powerful
project,
combined with fatigue, irritation, and anger. People were arriving in
a never-ending stream. Imagine a large well-lit conference hall, a
huge table with food and drink set out in the middle, an atmosphere
of friendship and warmth. Casual chit-chat, people meeting people,
and of course, flirting. Then the questioning began, and people
talked and talked and talked."
haha! I know what it’s like to wait patiently So here’s the next installment. I’ll post another later on. That’s quite a lot to be reading today (although must admit I read reams of it straight away. Very addictive, especially when it starts on their discoveries).
“Psychologists nodded, asked their questions, the tapes were rolling.
Everyone enjoyed being someone important for a change. People liked
the feeling that their knowledge and experience was needed by
someone. They shared it to the best of their abilities. More than
that-it was hard to stop them. We heard stories of dead people on
balconies, of chases through old ruins, flying over cities, and so on
and so forth.
After two weeks I began waiting for a sign to end this social
experiment. The sign came in the flesh, a bodybuilder-type chap with
a square face, and fists bigger than his head. I had just come to
Riga to check on the local Dreaming club and stumbled upon this guy
while walking in the hall.
“Is this the Dreaming club?” he asked.
“Yes sir, it is.”
“So…” he shouted… “You’re the one who’s sleeping with my
wife?!”
and his fist sent me flying across the hall. I spat out a tooth and
decided that this was undoubtedly the sign I had been looking for.
We called it a day, shut down the clubs, and started to analyse the
results. The psychologist wrote up volumes, but the principle finding
was simple. The dreams were a bit of talking, a bit of action and a
fantastic cliché-the same thoughts, the same plots, the same
movements. When speaking of one hundred cases one cannot see many
similarities; however, when it came to thousands of dreams the
synchronicity was astonishing.
For example, on February the 3rd 1994, a lot of people were dreaming
about playing with children either on a construction site or amongst
ruins. What was that? A “dream-movie” broadcast? Or some file that
was stored on the “disk drive” of those people? Was that a
correct
interpretation of the data that was sent to them? Was it a warning?
An instruction? Even now these questions remain unanswered. It’s
virgin territory for pioneers like you. The synchronicity issue had a personal touch. While reading the
reports I came across a dream that resembled my own in some detail. A
woman described sneaking inside a pyramid where, to her surprise, she
found a little hen house. That was funny, a pyramid, ruthless guards,
underground labyrinth and-a chicken farm. The fact is that I had
almost exactly the same dream, only in my dream there were some cows
present.
I met the woman and we became friends. She entered the group of
enthusiasts that began forming around me at that time. Her name was
Alla-a bright star of a little town in the suburbs of Moscow.
Later
she became a dreamhacker and broke into the kernel of “dream
security” which traces our conscious trips in the world of forces
and
energies, the world of our private, collective and social
personnifications.
Alla- a tragic fate, and a rebellious spirit who broke the chains
of
physical illness. She is the real-life example that a true hacker is
a warrior. We will meet her later, in the next chapter, but for now
let’s get back to some analysis.”
"At that time scientists openly discussed dreams and published their
research. The military paid almost no attention at all to the
subject. However, in 1995 the situation changed dramatically.
Hundreds of files describing the relations between “reality” and
the “Dreaming world” were removed from the archives.
Some examples of direct correlations:
a) How do the dreams of ordinary people differ from those of rape
victims?
b) Dreams of the survivors of concentration camps and those who
witnessed mass executions?
c) Dreams of the teens with the symptoms of progressive hearing loss?
d) Influence of sadism and masochism on dreams of people of different
age groups;
e) Connection between vestibular activity and the frequency
of “transparent” dreams;
f) Influence of the menstrual hormonal circle on the content of
dreams;
Some opposing examples:
a) The rôle of dreams in stress adaptation;
b) The influence of dreams on creativity and the conception of
metaphors;
c) Incorporation of “solutions” from the “dreamworld” to “everyday
reality”.
d) The influence of different types of dreams on hormonal activity.
However, we made it just in time. All scientific knowledge
accumulated by humanity over the last 30 centuries found its place in
50 thick files titled “Archives”. The work of hundreds of
hired
specialists who spent their days flying up-and-down the ladders
between the racks of tall shelving was not in vain."
“I found myself immersed in a sea of theories. Articles praising
Calvin Hall and Bergson were followed by critiques of Freud.
“The content of dreams is a product of memories randomly chosen
by a
biological process” reputable scientists wrote.
“No way!” others replied. “You forgot to take into account
the
aspects of creative incubation and the REM-dream function. The brain
itself organises the neuron signals, a cogniscent co-relation which
creates interruptions and inconsistencies during dreams.”
“Nonsense!” other opponents insisted. “We should consider
REM-dreams,
NREM-dreams and the waking state as the expressions of one
undifferentiated state, because EEG graphs clearly show 7 to 9 Hz
peaks between the waking state, the NREM-dream, and the REM-dream, in
the same frequency that was noted during meditation.”
However, every theory is just a possibility determined by a set of
chosen facts. That is, the number of theories could be infinite, and
all of them could be correct in some way.
At the same time the “creeping silence” was all over Russia.
The “science of dreaming” was ripped-off down to the last file,
hidden away, and shuffled into the back of a dark closet. Professors
stole the last of the equipment. Assistants were drinking ethanol and
selling the last discoveries. Maybe because of all that, my friend,
one rich and crazy hacker said:
“Enough is enough! Let someone else make their fortune on the
blood
of Russian boys and their mothers’ tears! I will invest in the
development of the science of “controlled dreams”, so everyone
who’s
fed up with the nonsense of world leaders can have a place where he
can go-the place of dreams and knowledge, a beautiful and
mysterious
El Dorado”.
What was said was done. In a little over a period of one month we
collected all the then-available information about Dreams and
Dreaming. Our conclusion was that Dreaming was an analogy of
accessing a computer text file in “read only” mode.[“Machines are
extensions of the senses”] Now, five years later, some American
scientists have come to the same conclusion.
Dreaming is the description, the interpretation of influences which
are passed to our consciousness by our brain. The Dreaming world is
an illusion, maya. In fact, each dream is a “bubble of
perception”,
embodying the description of some place, the scene, the characters,
the emotions and feelings. What we call the “Dreaming world” is just
a handful of “bubbles”-a void-within-a-void, separated from
chaos by
a thin film of colour.”
I actually somewhat connected to this group. My experiences are similar regarding dream boundaries. Not wanting to spoil anything (if it’s possible), however if you’re impatient you can read forth.
"Those familiar with computers will know that a data file cannot
influence the operating system. However it can become the “lock
pick”
once you add on macros. Hackers use this trick to break in to any
secured system, and we decided to use it to “break in” to Dreaming.
This is why Don Juan told Castaneda to look for his hands in
dreams-
he insisted on remembering about it while Dreaming, in bringing on
the awareness, the macro “hands” in the content of the dream,
and
gradually creating the "worm’ in the programming of his
conscience.
One might say it’s the craziest idea they’ve ever heard. Well,
considering that it came from our crazy hacker, it is not surprising.
The important thing is that my friend was rich enough to be able to
test his hypothesis.
In order to find a method different from the one used by Carlos
Castaneda, our analyst suggested to use a “CAR”, a “Creation of
Artificial Replacement”. This method implies introducing the “active”
into the system, which in its turn will create an artificial space, a
place for future action.
We decided to replace a handful of “bubbles of perception”
with an
artificial “controlled” space, or more accurately, with an exact copy
of the human conscience matrix which describes the dreaming world for
us. Each of us had to create a map of Dreams, and place all
the “bubbles” in one “picture”.
Oh, how naïve we were in our vanity of pioneers. After years
passed,
we realised that we had only been repeating the Toltec technique of
Recapitulation, with the only difference that we were recapitulating
not our lives, but our Dreams. And do you know what? Those Toltecs
were the real hackers."
There may be the chance for those interested here to participate in a project with some of the original dreamhackers.
Thanks for posting the link. I was going to post the links, but decided it’s quite good to deliver it in smaller installments, as I noticed with a few of us, that when we read from the links there was the tendancy to eagerly go through it fast in order to get more and more information. It’s really good to go through it again in this slower way as I’m taking it in better.
Drawing a map of any kind is not the goal, just a means to an end.
While drawing a map, you get acquainted with the surroundings, and
later find yourself in those new surroundings. Let’s imagine an
ordinary PC game quest, where the gameplay space is obscured by
the “fog of war”. This may sound far-fetched, but is a
suitable
analogy with the Dreamworld. Is there anywhere, or anyone who has
ever played such a PC game, who found one where the mission consisted
in uncovering the map? No. But instead of that, there are a lot of
games, where by getting rid of the “fog of war” and
uncovering the
map, we find the solution for the “quest mission”. The real gamer
knows that it is impossible to achieve the goal without using the
map. Spatial orientation saves your time and energy, while the
absence of the map transforms the interesting game into a boring
wandering-round-in-circles. Drawing the map is the method, but not
the aim. Moreover, the map is not the Dreamworld, just as the globe
is not the Earth. The Dreaming-map is a type of space created in
vitro, which only in a varying degree reflects the description of our
Dreams. The map is not able to describe all of your Dreams. It is
limited by the choice of the basic elements. For instance, you can
draw the map of the terrain with the complexity of your feelings, or
you can direct your attention to the other components of the
Dream. “Dreamhackers” stopped on drawing the map of the
terrain. But
why did they choose this way? They decided that it could be used as a
method of Not-doing for Dream description. In this case the dreamer
excludes a part of the inner dialogue, the part connected with
the “spirit entities” of the dream (the term coined by the
Dreamhackers). According to the hackers’ opinion, the Dream is the
bubble of perception which includes a small terrain with such
attributes as “spirits” and background. Some Dreams don’t have
those
attributes."
"Let’s run off this topic for a bit and discuss different
classifications of Dreams. In fact, there are thousands of them. For
instance, Partris Garfield (Ïàòðèöèÿ Ãàðôèëüä) offers a
classification of “universal dreams”, which stresses emotional
constituents, and divides all kinds of Dreams into pairs of
opposites: Dreams about falling and Dreams about flying; Dreams about
losses and Dreams about acquisitions etc. It seems a pat method of
classification, but it numbers 36 different types of Dream.
“Hackers”
devised their own classification and narrowed it down to 4 types:
“Loops of delirium”: Usually, these dreams are extremely
schematic, and have a common plot. As a rule, people have these
dreams during illness, during periods of being laid-up in bed, or
periods of hunger and starvation. These dreams can be remembered
perfectly. In most of these cases “loops” occur during the
5-6 REM
periods. As far as beginners go, they are practically useless. As for
experienced users, it is a wonderful chance to jump into a “lucid”
Dream. It’s interesting that “loops” frequently have minimal
background, and almost always have no “Dream entities”.
“Hackers”
consider this type of Dream to be equivalent to a “checkout”
programme.
“Talking” Dreams, whose content, 80%-90% of the time, consists of
tittle-tattle, monologue, and dialogue. Usually, people don’t
remember them. These Dreams can be had during the 2-3-4 REM periods.
In the case of an active Dream practitioner, these dreams transform
into types 3) and 4);
“Bright” dreams: dreams with a deep background, a complex plot,
and picturesque “Dreaming entities”. These dreams can be usually had
during a 1, 5, or 6 REM period. They supply the Dreamer with the main
material for map creation.
“Transparent Dreams”. They are usually very rare in the initial
stages of practice. People remember them almost perfectly, and often
interpret them as lucid dreams, because a transparent dream involves
moments of realising that you are asleep."
glad you’re enjoying it I know how intriguing and addictive a read it was the first time I looked at it. You can always read ahead if you can’t wait, at the link Popov gave. I decided to do shorter installments because I notice reading it in this slower way has helped me “digest” it all better. I think some people have been put off reading it before because the info came in streams and streams on the other forums I’ve seen it at.
“NB: “Hackers” consider that “controlled dreams” are not
dreams at
all. As I have already said, it is only one of the available
classifications. Mostly, they don’t differ from the others and I
offer it to you only to show all the limitations of dream
cartography, which mainly, as you have already understood, uses only
types 3) and 4). But why do we need this beta-version (the cut down
model)? And what about creating something more global? For example, a
description which recalls the Mendeleyev Table, where the combined
energy of feelings, of the columns of visualized images, and of the
concentration on specific energy centres of the body could identify
the paradigm and orientation of your feelings. All these challenges
are available to you. You have already lived out a third of your life
in your dreams and are an expert in this field. You can create you
own models and classifications. There is the rule of the chinese
philosopher U-at first, you plough the field, and only after that
can
the field feed you. You should work on your model if you want your
model to work on you. “Hackers” are lazy dogs! [So are all
Dreamers! ;o)] That’s why, they have created this
“beta-version”.
Their method is not any “gate of Dreaming”, but a common underground
passage under the wall of the unknown.
I have met a lot of regular guys, who with varying degrees of
diligence used the method of “finding their hands in dreams”.
In
fact, only a few of them have achieved any success. Two or three
successful dreams in a year reflects the most typical situation. Of
course, there were some lucky devils, who managed to do it without
any efforts (or with efforts). And in the same time thousands of
people left the “Toltec way”, considering themselves to be incapable
and weak. After that, they hunted for explanations for their “bad
luck”, but in the deepest part of their soul they longed for those
amazing possibilities, which were described by Castaneda.
“Hackers”
offer them one more chance-entering the world of lucid dreams
through
the narrow manhole of a substitute method, created in vitro. If the
Eagle is satisfied by the substitution, created by Recapitulation,
then why shouldn’t he swallow the surrogate of the recapitulated
dream?”
"Well, let’s enter the underground passage. We will begin our
quest
and dispel (a bit) the “fog of war”. In other words, we will
just
look around.
What does the dreamer need to practice the cartography? Firstly, he
needs to keep a diary of his dreams. Keep it near to your bed.
Secondly, he needs a pencil with a rubber. If you ask your memory and
subsequently remember one of your dreams you should make a note.
Firstly, you should draw the plan of the terrain-a chain of
mountains, a lake, a glade with a road. If you see yourself in a
building, don’t waste your time on drawing different
rooms-mark this
house and everything which surrounds it. If you see a comb, which
transforms into a mountain, then call it comb/mountain. You
mustn’t
be too particular. But the more strength of concentration you put in
at the beginning, the quicker you will progress. Secondly, write
titles on your plan, which illustrate the details of the landscape. A
month later you will look at your picture as if for the first time,
and your titles will bring forth recollections. Thirdly, you should
briefly describe the plot of the dream. For instance, “The
meeting
with an “Ally”. It looked at me and I became very afraid of it. Fear
took my attention away into another bubble of the perception (into
another dream scenario)”. It is very useful to number every
described
dream. While describing the dream you don’t need to use cardinal
points. Later, some interesting transformations in your gathered
dream collection will take place. Some of your dream bubbles will
interflow. For example, you had a dream about your institute, later,
about your native house, then the third dream, which united three
dreams in a chain of a united space. It’s better to remember the
last
dream. So you should learn how to awake very softly. Plug in your
intention to “remember all of your dreams” after every
awakening.
Just hold on to the fragile recollection of the scene, and put the
full dream into your perception. A little bit of practice and you
will invent your own method of recollection. The main point is making
notes daily. If you didn’t manage to catch the dream of the
previous
night then describe another dream, which you remembered. But do it
every day! (Or try to!)."
"Let’s diverge a bit and speak about orientation. Let us assume
that
you have already gathered hundreds of described dreams and you still
don’t have any idea how to place them on your map. Well, perhaps
several dreams interflowed, but others are still up-in-the-air. OK.
You have two possibilities: to continue creating your map from
thousands of personal puzzles, or you can use the hackers’ experience
and in that way save 3-4 years of your life. Those who prefer
the “purity of the experiment”, should choose the first
option. As
for others, they will get dozens of options around which they can
group their described dreams.
At the initial phase of our research we engaged several psychologists
to try to solve our problems of orientation. They did a great amount
of research, recruiting our gays and volunteers who didn’t know
anything about the project. For instance, they used to gather a group
of ten muscovites and ask them to describe a particular
memorial. “How do you see it and from which side do you see it?
From
which direction do you come to it? Let’s describe one more
memorial.
From which side do you see it?” And so on and so forth. It was an
ineffective effort. Finally, the experts made the following
conclusion: everybody in a specific period of time learns to
orientate by the cardinal points. People choose two points-their
own
position, and another object, which is titled as “north”
or “south”, “east” or “west” in relation to
their position. The
following orientation is lined up according to this object; to be
exact, the definitive direction turns out to be the icing on the
cake. And experiments in these groups confirmed this theory to an
extent, but it was neither hot nor cold for us.
“Hackers” divided into 2 bands. One of them practiced the
already-
described method of dream coalescence. The other one posted numbers
of dreams on their maps, pinning their faith on intuition. The first
method brought a great amount of interesting invention. The second,
although bringing a mass of commotion, finally appeared to be no
worse then the first.
"1) The Dreamworld (or rather the model which described it) appeared
to be a rather small area. For instance, there was only one city
there. I have lived in many countries. In Russia, I haven’t only
been
in the far north and in the far east. Nevertheless, there is only one
city on the map: the embodiment of all the cities I have ever seen,
with elements of St.Petersburg, Minsk, of Kasbah [Where is Kasbah?]
and Tashkent. Transitions and interflows of these places in-Dreaming
are amazingly harmonic and natural. Furthermore there are a lot
of “cul-de-sac bubbles” (dreams) round the City-summer camps,
friends’ houses, directions in the area to places of which I had
heard, but hadn’t visited yet.
The centre of the Dreamworld is the house of the Dreamer. The
edges of the map are called “border ranges” (usually mountain
chains,
seas, rivers, dunes, and deserts). There is nowhere farther than
these “border ranges”. In this very moment “Hackers”
know only that
northern and southern “border ranges” are immutable. With the
practice the northern “border range” moves slightly further
afield.
There are some “blind spots” on the eastern “border
range” (a highly-
restricted area!).
There are dozen of places on the Dream map which don’t exist
in
the “real” world. For instance, the zone of cataclysms, labyrinths
etc. [Caves?] which I have already mentioned.
And last but not least: we nearly went crazy when we found out
that our maps had common basic details. Some special places are
present on nearly every map. For example, K. writes about a huge
building, which has a link with a stadium. And I have this formation
too. And, as I know where this place is situated, I can give K. some
useful advice and in this way I can help her create a map. And, in
the case of telling K. about the nearest landmarks, she may have had
a very interesting insight-she came to know that she had already
visited those landmarks thousands of times, and consequently she was
caught up by a wonderful and inexpressible feeling of dream
recollection. Another “invention” is connected to two buildings-a
sanctuary and a jail (the sanctuary could be in the form of
“police”
or a “computer”; the “jail” could be smart, evil, and
destructive: a
concentration camp with a bigot-executioner; an army college etc.).
You will find a lot in the first place. As for the second place, you
will have already visited it many times, and loosen up a lot.[What
does this mean?] Then “hackers” found out that if they got
their
practice right (by searching for necessary places and avoiding
unnecessary places) a Dreamer becomes involved in a shocking process.
Each new recollection and description of a dream will rope you into a
chain of very old recollections (ten or twenty years old)! Hundreds
of places, where you have been hundreds of times will be revealed in
a bright flash! In such moments a man lives through a very powerful
state. ["It is like a ‘weekly Satori’ “] You will not feel euphoria,
but rather a strange thirst-faster! More! The everyday “reality”
of
your family, friends, your job, the “real” world will leave you. You
are neither here nor there-on a strange borderline. Dreams become
very transparent. You remember yourself in a Dream every night.
Achievements turn out to be heady. The words of Castaneda and don
Juan gain a new meaning. You see something in them that you
didn’t
manage to catch before. BAH! Subsequent collapse into an insufferable
depression-you want to commit suicide. And yet again you have to gather up your strength bit-by-
bit and continue your practice until new ups-and-downs come, breaking
certain membranes in yourself. And later you take your map, knead it
like a piece of dough, and use it purposefully. Then you don’t
need
it any more. By this time, as a rule, there is no “fog of
war” on it.
Some time later you turn your attention to those strange “blind
spots” on the “border range” of the Tonal. But, as the
saying goes,
that’s another story.”
"Dreams consist of a set of components: subjects and
emotions; “characters”; locality/terrain; colour and sound;
nonconformities; breaks/ruptures; passageways, and so forth. In
contemporary culture, dream-sleeps are usually used for divination,
for the prediction of future events. Recalling the pair of “Bright
dreams”, and “meanings of dreams”, you look in a “dream-book” and
find their interpretations. Everything is clear and
understandable: “to dream of an island indicates the finding of rest,
freedom and the deserved appreciation of others, after much anxiety.”
Or: “to see chains betokens slander and treacherous intentions of
those jealous of you.” Don’t do what I did, that is, don’t look in
another “dream interpretation” book. Don’t make the same mistake, or
you will find a different interpretation: "an island: this means
changes in your personal life, separation and loss; divorce. And: “a
chain is a symbol of undivided faithfulness.” As soon as you compare
the interpretations of two different dream-interpretation books, the
method of divination loses half of its effectiveness. This is its
main failing
Dreamhackers decided to go another way. We wanted to
create “technology” which would satisfy all requirements and rules,
as described in the books of Castaneda. We conducted serious studies
and then arrived at some interesting conclusions/derivations:"
So here’s the next installment. I’ll post another later on. That’s quite a lot to be reading today (although must admit I read reams of it straight away. Very addictive, especially when it starts on their discoveries).
. I look forward to reading more, thank you for posting this.
I know how intriguing and addictive a read it was the first time I looked at it. You can always read ahead if you can’t wait, at the link Popov gave. I decided to do shorter installments because I notice reading it in this slower way has helped me “digest” it all better. I think some people have been put off reading it before because the info came in streams and streams on the other forums I’ve seen it at.
hehe.