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Jonson Miller Biography

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (page 47) One woman reported to me that she has, at times, had frequent sexual dreams in which a dream orgasm occurred, leading to physical orgasms at the same time. I suspect that these dreams were provoked by the flow of blood to her clitoris during REM sleep.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (page 51) Many years later, I read about the phenomenon of hypnopompic sleep paralysis. This phenomenon is rare, but many people have experienced it once or twice in their lives. And a very few people are tortured by it nightly. I have known several people to mention such experiences, all of them expressing the same fearful elements of the phenomenon. We can awaken so abruptly from REM sleep that our natural bodily paralysis hasn't yet had time to wear off. It can take some moments before full bodily movement is regained.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (pages 58-59) Lucid means clear, rational, or intelligible. During a lucid dream, the dreamer gains awareness of the fact that he or she is dreaming. This opens up many possibilities for the dreamer, including the capacity to deliberately direct the dream.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (page 59) Toilets almost always have some oddity about them in my dreams. I'm not alone. I've read similar reports from other dreamers. Upon encountering these toilets, my limited consciousness tries to make sense of their oddities. I fail to and am often left confused.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (pages 60-61) These toilets were odd because they were dream toilets and dreams are weird. My consciousness tried to make sense of their strangeness. That's all. My awareness led me to make changes to the dream. Would the dream, the one with symbolic meaning that represents something I need to learn about myself, have gone in the direction of a search for a working toilet if it hadn't been for either the need to urinate or the intrusion of my consciousness? Probably not. Does the confusion itself have any meaning? Again, probably not. So don't get hung up on trying to interpret the meaning of so many dreams in which you are confused. It doesn't necessarily reflect, as an example, confusion during your waking life. Examine the source of the confusion in your dreams to see if you can identify the intrusion of your conscious mind into your dreams. If so, then make a note of it in your journal after the entry for that dream.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (page 65) There is a second way of losing a lucid dream. You can, while lucid, believe that you have woken up and are no longer dreaming at all. This is often called a 'false awakening.' You are in effect still lucid, but you just don't think you're dreaming.”

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“Chapter 5: What Dreams Are Made Of (page 66) Lucid dreaming can provide much joy and even serve as an aid for your waking life — such as preparing for athletic or business events — or even in your spiritual life. But lucid dreams are not meaningful for the limited purpose of interpretation. While you will certainly record your lucid dreams in your journal, you will not include them in your analysis of dream patterns. But you must first recognize your lucid dreams and false awakenings so that you do not include them in your analysis. Fortunately, they are easy to recognize. Keep your eyes open for them and have fun when you do realize you're dreaming. The more you work with your dreams in general, the more likely you are to have lucid dreams.”

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“Chapter 6: The Dream Report (page 75) Studying your dreams requires more than recording them and thinking about them in isolation each morning. You must return to them days, weeks, or even years later and think about your dreams in relation to one another. It is through this periodic review of dreams that you will find the patterns in them. It is these patterns that are the meaningful parts of most of your dreams. It is these patterns that reveal the unseen patterns of your waking life. Once revealed, you will then work to change your unhelpful patterns.”

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“Chapter 6: The Dream Report (page 76) As you review your dreams, think about our six questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how? Who appears in your dreams? What appears in your dreams? What objects, feelings, and actions? Where do your dreams take place? When do these dreams take place? Night time? Winter? In your childhood? In the distant future? For why, consider the motivations of the characters and their goals. How are things done in your dreams? Are they done the same way as in waking life? Or is there something strange about it? Don't just think about the answers to these; organize them, write them down, be systematic.”

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“Chapter 7: Finding your Dream Pattern (page 98) When you first read the phrase "dream patterns" you may have thought of recurring dreams. Recurring dreams certain represent a dream pattern, but they are a special category of them. Usually dream patterns are the repetition of particular clusters of dream images or themes. Recurring dreams, however, are dreams that occur over and over the same way, perhaps even identically.”

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“Chapter 8: Breaking and Making your Patterns (page 105) Often, simply acknowledging an undesirable pattern in your waking life isn't enough. You may have to work to replace that pattern. As you do so, you will find confirmation of your efforts in your dreams. As you replace the waking-life patterns, the dream patterns will dissolve.”

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“Chapter 8: Breaking and Making your Patterns (pages 109-110) As you become more mindful and self-aware, you will be better able to penetrate the waking-life patterns that your dreams are pointing to. Moreover, you will start to become more aware of the deep source of your patterns. With awareness comes the ability to accept those patterns, determine whether they're helpful or not and, if not, to let them go. As you do so, write down all of your observations about yourself and your dream patterns. Write up your interpretations of your dream patterns in your dream journal. Write about the waking-life patterns they represent. Note your efforts to change your waking-life patterns and how those changes affect your life. And, of course, identify and discuss changes in your dream patterns as a result of the changes in your waking-life patterns.”

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“Chapter 8: Breaking and Making your Patterns (pages 111-112) Take Action Answer the following questions in your dream journal. They will help you analyze your dream patterns and your waking-life patterns. 1. Briefly describe one of the dream patterns you've recognized. It may be the same you recognized in the workbook for the previous chapter. 2. Link the above dream pattern to a waking-life pattern. If you're unsure of the link, identify several possible links. Describe the waking-life pattern(s) in your dream journal. 3. Consider how you might work to change an undesirable waking-life pattern. Take some notes on how you might recognize, acknowledge, and let go of the pattern. 4. As you work on that pattern, write some notes in your journal on your efforts. Are you able to recognize, acknowledge, and let go of the waking-life pattern? How is this affecting your life? How is it affecting your dreams? 5. Develop a daily meditation, mindfulness, or qigong practice to help you cultivate the self-awareness necessary for recognizing and letting go of your waking-life patterns.”

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“Glossary (page 143) dream pattern A cluster of recurring images or themes in your dreams. It is in these recurring patterns, rather than individual images or dreams, that we will generally find meaning. Our dream patterns reflect conscious or unconscious patterns in our attitudes, feelings, or behaviors in our waking lives.”

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“Glossary (page 143) hypnopompic sleep paralysis A rare event related to sleep paralysis. In these cases, the dreamer awakens, but the normal sleep paralysis has not yet worn off and the now awake person remains paralyzed. This can result in a sense of panic. Such cases are often accompanied by the clear sighting of a face or figure in the room with the dreamer. The person perceives the figure to be frightening or hostile. The paralysis and the frightening figure typically fade away on their own accord within a few seconds.”

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“Glossary (page 144) lucid dream A dream in which the person is conscious of dreaming. Such awareness often brings with it a feeling of bliss and an ability to control the contents of the dream. non-lucid dream A normal dream. A dream in which the person is not aware of dreaming and the normal operations of waking consciousness are not present.”

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“Glossary (page 145) sleep paralysis A natural and helpful condition during dreaming. Our body paralyses the muscles we use to move so that we don't physically carry out the actions from our dreams, which would result in injury. Some of our muscles, such as eye muscles, and those that regulate involuntary actions, such as our breathing, remain functional. See hypnopompic sleep paralysis for a special and frightening case.”

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“Glossary (pages 145-146) sublucid dream Dreams in which a person's conscious mind is operating and trying to make sense of the dream, but does not realize that it is dreaming. This attempt to make sense of the dream can alter the content of the dream to meet the expectations of the dreamer. However, unlike with lucid dreams, the dreamer cannot deliberately control the contents of the dream. We are often sublucid when, in our dreams, our conscious mind intrudes to try to make sense of the inherent strangeness of the dream. We often experience confusion in such dreams.”

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“Chapter 3: Recalling Your Dreams (page 27) Obtaining a dream journal is an essential step in developing dream recall. You should already have taken this step. If not, why not? Go get one. There's no point in continuing on if you do not. First of all, you need to write down your dreams to study them later. But, more than that, obtaining a dream journal is a personal statement of commitment to recalling and working with your dreams. By making this commitment, you plant in yourself the suggestion that you will in fact recall your dreams. If you are someone who almost never recalls dreams, you may have found that the very next morning after obtaining your journal that you recalled one or even more dreams. Moreover, at least if you have a hand-written journal, placing it beside your bed serves as a reminder, both before going to sleep and upon awakening, to recall your dreams.”

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“Chapter 3: Recalling Your Dreams (page 29) If you do recall, just barely, a segment of a dream, try to more fully recall the last part that you remember, then work backwards. I don't know why this works, but, over and over again, I have found that if I barely remember a few fragments, working forwards through the dream allows the last parts of the dream to evaporate and be lost. But, working backwards, I seem to be able to recall the dream without losing much.”

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“Chapter 3: Recalling Your Dreams (page 31) At one point, when I was working especially intently with my dreams for a particular project, I was recalling an average of fifteen dreams every morning. That's extreme and I don't normally come anywhere close to that, but it shows you what's possible. Dream recall is essential to studying your dream patterns. After all, how can you identify a pattern if you can't find the pieces making up that pattern? Regardless, remembering at least one dream each morning will be sufficient.”

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“Chapter 4: Recording Your Dreams (page 42) Write titles that will help you to quickly recall the dream or determine its main theme. You needn't confine your journaling to words, at least if you hand-write your dreams. Draw maps of the setting or pictures of important images from your dreams. Not every dream will necessarily have something worth drawing. Maybe most of your dreams won't. But, sometimes, you can more clearly communicate the appearance of something meaningful by drawing it rather than writing about it.”

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