Reading Between the Lines
Parallel Dreaming
Just this week in October 2024 scientists announced a new breakthrough in sleep research. They were able, using new tech, to record two people having two way communication between each other while lucid dreaming. This is yet another example of science catching up to what mystics have been practicing for time immemorial.
The Innernaut introduces a similar concept by sharing his dream experience, or as he says “dreaming in complete parallel” with his dream partner, his “Soror Mystica” (mystic sister), in the book Dreaming Into Knowing: The Way of the Innernaut. In the book we learn about partner dreaming, where the Innernaut gets a list of five questions to dream on and receive answers.
Soror Mystica doesn’t know what the questions are but in the morning, and for the next few days she shares what the dream world answered to those questions. No technology was involved in this, only years of committed dream practice, clear intention, and understanding of how intertwined we are.
We all have the tools within us to tap into the “invisible”, world of our subconcious, and the essence of all that is.
In the text below we share with you one of the recent parallel dreaming interactions between the Innernaut and his Soror Mystica.
Reading Between the Lines
Soror Mystica: Well, I dreamt a lot, but it was pretty jumbled. At the beginning of the dream, it feels like I am on a large ship and see someone doing something. There are a lot of people and even though I think of them all as people, they are different species -- owls and something out of a science fiction movie. But to me, they are all people on some level.
Innernaut: Different types of aliveness and different kinds of ways of approaching.
Soror Mystica: Right. And one of them has seen something, or I have seen something that the captain doesn't want me to see. So he is trying to eliminate witnesses and disappear it, whatever it was, an owl maybe or a person. Meanwhile, I start exploring the ship in an area I think of more as mine. And there are all these beings and creatures everywhere. I am trying to pull together which ones are allies or figure out how to communicate with them. At some point, I discovered that I could offer a little protection to the one the captain thought he had gotten rid of. There are others I talked to, but it is confusing. It is hard for me to pull the dream out because none of it looks normal. I identify with some beings with specific martial arts skills, which is interesting. I want to go deeper and even invite one of them back. Maybe I want to get that grounded by doing some qigong or movements with them. And I think that is when I discovered the one I thought the captain had thrown overboard. In one area of the ship, I am trying to pull together and sort through the chaos and create a little more order, as well as learn how to communicate with and sort out these different beings around me. It is almost like a large festive gathering, with some people walking, others dancing, some knowing martial arts, and everything mingling. I am trying to get it sorted, settled, and grounded in my area to figure out what is going on, have some safety and order, learn something, and develop a bit. It is hard for me even to describe it because there are so many different kinds of unfamiliar beings, like in a Harry Potter movie. And then it feels like I am beginning to sift, sort things out, and get grounded. I found a few more that I can ground myself with. It is chaotic.
Innernaut: I dreamt in a similar but different way. I dream more poignantly because of the outbreath, and you dream in a greater spatiality and aliveness, but you are on an adventure, a journey with all these other creatures. Everything is an aliveness on this journey. You are meant to catch up with something other than the normal void. Everyone else is going this way and that way. The captain has a particular directive in the same way that people get caught in their own orientation in the overall. You have developed a sense inside of yourself that there is something invisiblized. You are still sorting out or holding onto a few things, like martial arts or movements that you think you need to get more grounded, a perception of the outer appearance of things. That might be a bit of deviation because it is more significant that you are catching up with a type of otherness that can naturally be invisible in its own atmosphere.
It is an information dream. It explains how you have evolved. The overallness you are in is a much more advanced state where you know the names and aliveness of all things. But even in this zone and spaciousness, there is something else you need to identify with, and you are spinning over whatever that may be. You are not sure because the things that you are trying to sort out from the malaise of it all -- a martial arts or movement orientation for grounding purposes -- may or may not be what you need in terms of being around everybody.
Innernaut: Instead, you need to go to a part of yourself that is amidst life. It is somehow separate from the collective overallness. So that dream is more generalized because it is an overallness. And my dream is more an outbreath that is waking. So, in my sleep dream, I am at a campus where everyone has gone to an area where their luggage has been taken. I am held behind because I will be going in the opposite direction. I am catching a ride with Gary, who will be leaving at the very end of things. I do not know how it happened, but I was given an empty trunk. It may be junk because what am I going to do with it?
Innernaut: So I try to drag it off and leave it out in the open because I realize I must enter a building to get my luggage before they lock everything up. It is not in the same place as everybody else is because they are going in a different direction. I am pleased to find the big outer door open. I go inside, and there is a smaller room off one side. I am very fearful it is already locked, but someone did not close it completely, so I push it open. There were no bags, but then I remembered being shown another corridor. Can I figure that out? Can I find it? So I left that room and closed the door. It locks behind me, and I see my bags in a protected open area off to one side. I wonder how I am going to handle all this. I have a big heavy suitcase and then two small things I can stack on top of each other and wheel out. And I guess I'll be able to grab the trunk and drag it too.
Then, I try to find out if Gary is ready to leave. I have no idea what travelling with him will be like, but I am looking forward to it. There is another person in the area where my bags are who is at a different depth inside of himself, not a depth of going back and forth from the university after each quarter. This one is leaving, too, but not in a totally letting-go way. He has decided to pick up something he considers a memento, but nobody else cares. I shake my head. Who cares? When you shift and move on, you move on. I take my bags and see if someone has taken the trunk given to me, but I do not know what I will do with it.
So this is an information dream indicating that as I go through the collective consciousness in the outer, something about my nature has woken up differently. But I am still caught in a particular type of time and space. I still have luggage, but I am not going back and forth between campus and home. I'm going to a whole new place, and there must be something there that I have to catch up on. Even though I do not know why I have this junky-looking trunk, I know I can fit it in Gary's big car, and if I need it, I need it.
The difference between our two dreams is I have completed the outbreath, and I am leaving, which is more of an inbreath nature, and you are sitting in an area where you can recognize the aliveness of all things and relate to it. I am more into getting very poignant, but I am leaving and going to another area, even though I do not know what that is. You sense differently. You recognize the aliveness, which is caught in its demeanor. The captain has his agenda, and the person who varies from that is invisible and thrown overboard. You do not quite know how the spacious area works, but over time, you come to recognize this person is distinguished from the journey the captain is taking everyone on, that person being you.
Innernaut: With all the complexity, you are still glancing at stuff for grounding, like the martial arts, Qigong, et cetera. It is like a malingerment because you may not need it. The invisibilized aspect, the grounding and the rootedness, the journeying under someone else's motif, is something you have transcended. You have come to recognize something more. You are shifting your energies, just like I am looking into a different aspect of the journey. I am no longer going back and forth between home and university with all my luggage. I am going to a whole different area. It is not like I have an idea of a home. I am just excited to be progressing. I have a high degree of anticipation about it. Do you see the similarity in our dreams?
Soror Mystica: Yeah, yeah, I do.
Innernaut: And I had two hypnogogic images on the same subject before this sleep dream. In the first, I was in an area where I heard over the loudspeaker that two other attendees were being called in because they were under review by the Environmental Protection Agency. This is about attentiveness that was collectively violated by a misaligned way of being. The second one is about this guy I have never met before who is questioning me about something I have said or projected.
Innernaut: His questioning means he doubts or disagrees with what I said or has a different understanding coming from a different context. So I explain where I am coming from, and suddenly, instead of being a guy, it is now a woman. And she gets it, perhaps even crying a bit for having conducted herself in a way that she now realizes was disillusioned. Isn't that interesting?
Innernaut: So, both dreams deal with shifts and alignments while transitioning to something more opened up. So then the question is, how did that connect to the meditation dream? It drills down on something that seemed insignificant at the time but returned to help me understand there is something more hidden between the lines. I glossed over it in my usual mind-sense way, but in my meditation dream, it is really meaningful, breaking the trance.
Innernaut: In the dream, this was perceived as an inflection that broke through a cover-up. I was not picking up what I needed to, about my reflectiveness. I have come to notice this is part of bringing inner into outer. Occasionally, in the outer, there are inflective or reflective aspects we glaze over but the meditation dream drills down on them.
We have four essential components: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. Maybe this hit on a sensation level, causing me to try to sort it out. But it could be an awareness pulling in something more inner into outer. We all have an intuitive inner voice that we tend to ignore or treat as if misaligned.
Innernaut: This is kind of an inbreath quality connecting to so much more. In the meditation dream I was compelled to inflect more poignantly. The challenge was taking what seemed innocuous to the mind-senses and trying to bring it through. The outer is the greater teacher for those who can read between the words and connect the higher to the lower self. This aspect of the spaciousness lets go in an outbreath sense and moves into more of an inbreath. This is in the realm of spiritual illusion and dreaming that can also keep us spinning, It is a little different on the inbreath. One Sufi master, after years of teaching, is currently saying he has given everybody everything they need. Did we hear that, and then from it, can we read between the lines? He is pointing out the aliveness of everything. He is returning to how everything is essence connected to everything and everyone, yet supporting everything in a whole different way. We are crawling our way there if you think about it.