Consciousness explained

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  • Lots to think about here. No mention of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. I love listening to David Bohm in regard to consciousness and quantum physics. MP3 audios are available at New Dimensions Media( http://newdimensions.org/ ).
  • I've used dream interpretation with my clients in the past, especially children who have been abused. Dreams along with various expressive therapies. Curiously, even though I encouraged others to explore the meanings of their dreams, I've only recently pulled out my journals to start my own work. I may be old school but awareness, whether conscious, somatic, or emotive is where I believe the "magic" of healing takes place. I've dabbled in many things but am still too locked into the old world ways of approaching my own professional identity - therapist, spiritual director. However, as a cancer patrient once said to me "No one is dying. You are alive until you are dead." So who knows what transformations await....
  • I'm thrilled that you're continuing to work with your dream images, Ed! I misspoke when I said, . . . my perceptions would have no value to anyone. Maybe a more accurate way to say it is that, unless I have some common life experience (i.e., some resonance) with a particular frequency, I am unable to set it apart from other frequencies/vibrations, and, therefore, I can give only inelegant interpretations to it. Finer and finer distinctions come from greater and greater life experience. It's like the story about words for snow--whereas we have one word for snow, the Eskimo has 26 different words. I don't even know if this story is true, however, if it is, we could be walking arm in arm in a snowstorm, and one could argue that we're walking in entirely different snowstorms. All because of my lack of distinctions. Perhaps the only important point in all this is that, in "reading" or working with someone's energy, it is crucial to acknowledge and pull back our projections, so that we can see the person as separate from ourselves and respond to their situation with as much neutrality and integrity as humanly possible. This takes enormous commitment to being a courageous observer of ourselves, first and foremost. Am I wrong that you're also in a healing profession? If so, would you agree with this as relates to your own modes of working?
  • Only one comment, and I don't know whether you were talking philosophically or personally...your perceptions have much value. Your comments about my dream images started me down a deeper path and such sharing certainly broadens the possible meanings of any of my personal experiences in the future. Expanded my consciousness (a bow to the clip).
  • I'm familiar with the Creation Museum--I've been there! And I've seen some of the films produced there and found them to be intriguing. Interestingly, here is another domain--Religion! So, we have psychology, physics and religion all using the word consciousness in fundamentally different ways. People's sloppy use of language makes it all the more important that we validate the words we are hearing. You are good at that--you ask questions.

    As far as whether the vibrational frequencies being archetypal forms in action, I have no idea! But it's a good guess. To your point about my perceptions being implicated by my own experiences and cultural constructs, I think it must be so. But for my choice of words to articulate my perception and my own life experiences to shape meaning from what I perceive, my perceptions would have no value to anyone. I'm reminded of a Jung quote that I love:

    The wordless occurrences which are called forth [from the unconscious] demand to be individually shaped in and by each man's life and work . . . . Because of their opposition to the conscious mind they cannot be translated straight into our world; hence a way must be found that can mediate between conscious and unconscious reality.(CW7, pp. 63-78.)

    The issue of whether a victim of abuse has in some energetic way caused her own abuse . . . that's a whole separate conversation and something about which I have very strong opinions (like I don't have OTHER opinions!). But THAT'S for another day!!!
  • By the way, its almost midnight here - so please take that into consideration. :)
  • Dorene, I am in agreement with the concept of language as construct with the potential mutations that can occur in the use of language. And the use of the word "consciousness" as a collapsed construct is troublesome. I live in a state with a Creation Museum that presents creation as the result of a divine conscious act which is then further defined along conservative Christian lines. I'm pretty sure that this is not what the clip is suggesting even though the language is almost identical. My confusion comes when it feels that instead of trying to find another word to describe a construct (and here I love the German language), many thinkers attempt to co-opt other terms for their own thereby giving themselves unwarranted legitimacy.

    Just for fun. Could the vibrational frequencies be the archetypal energies that are then perceived somewhat differently due to the ability to hear/see/feel/taste/smell them as influenced by the individual's experiences and cultural constructs?

    As to the abuse question, I found myself writing a case study much too long for this venue. I think it comes down to whether one believes an abused person or colonized culture somehow drew such abuse to herself/itself energetically, thereby placing some metaphysical responsibility on the shoulders of the abused, or whether someone or some group can be fully conscious yet still suffer abuse for which they are not responsible. This kind of question always comes up for me, especially when I'm speaking with persons who are working with those moving from an "average" life to an extraordinary one rather than a traumatic life trying to gain some non-painful normality.

    I need to learn more about your working with subtle energies. I'm assuming it is largely an experiential practice. (?)
  • I may not have fully understood your points, Ed. But here are some thoughts to throw into the pot. My experience is that there are different paradigms that we live by which are actually artificial constructs that exist solely for the use of making distinctions in language. These terms often get collapsed. For example, there is the psychological construct of conscious and unconscious (or, a lack of consciousness), and there is the material construct of matter and space (or, an absence of matter), just to name two. When I watch this video, I'm thinking in terms of matter and quantum physics where things that seem solid are actually in states of movement and vibration. I experience what the video presents as true, based on my own way of perceiving subtle energies. The DP, of course, focuses on what is CS and UCS. Making things more confusing, terms are used across domains. This may be so in the video with the term consciousness, for example.

    Because of my experience with vibration and frequencies and my education in DP, I have wondered about how precisely "energy" (versus matter) and the UCS differ. I also wonder this about the archetypes, the Imaginal realm, and even God. Are they all essentially the same, but with different names? Intuitively, I think not, and I think it's because of how they are parsed, more than that they point to really different stuff. Anyhow, I count them all as some part of what I call, "The Invisibles." I am interested if you or others think differently.

    The way that I think about the notion that nothing exists unless there is someone to experience it aligns with what I think is the post-Jungian view that the world is dreaming us as we dream the world--everything is dreaming. That is, nothing really exists, except insofar as it is perceived by another. I might not be understanding what you're saying here, though.

    And, finally, I'm not understanding how you are connecting the act of "working with an abused woman" and her feeling judged or somehow vibrationally wrong. I'm interested. Say more, please.
  • A few questions. In that this is a site called the depth psychology alliance, I'm at a loss in not hearing the term unconscious anywhere in this video. It appears that there are only two "states," consciousness and ______ ignorance? preconscious? repressed consciousness? If the Unconscious exists in its own right as a dynamic force, where does it fit in this theory? Also, the idea that the universe might not exist if we humans are not consciously aware of it seems, to me, a bit inflated. AQlso, when I'm working with an abused woman, how do I work with her without making her feel it was her energetic/vibrational fault?
  • This articulates very eloquently (and in a way acceptable to scientists) much of my own experience over the last 30 years. I "work" with individuals' energy to reduce needless suffering. One of the things that I have observed in my work is that each of us has a particular vibration that is unique and a part of our birthright. When that vibration is tended and maintained in present time, we are able to move about our lives with a fluidity and ease, able to respond to life with the whole of our natural gifts, vitality and personal resources. Most of us are unaware of this invisible energetic field in and around us, however; and we are unaware of how it is significantly implicated by interactions with countless others around us. As we engage with people, Nature, and the thoughts swirling around us, as examples, the particular vibration at which we are resonating will speed up, or slow down. Certain people and thoughts change our vibration in a way that causes us to suffer. Engaging in the natural realm has a way of "reminding us" or returning our vibration closer to what is the ideal calibration for our body in present time. In my work, this is what "healing" is--facilitating an individual's restoration to his or her unique vibration. It is wonderful to hear and see my own highly non-traditional experience of the world reflected in the succinct way of this video. Thank you!

    , causing various forms of suffering. that can actually include of others
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