The Value of the Dream, by Naropa

I return to a dance studio where I've been before. I was put upon to give a performance and I thought it went fairly well and felt a sense of satisfaction. Then I perceived a sense of discomfort among the people around me. A group of women turn away from me to face the wall and several other women began crying hysterically. They were reacting to the action of the other women. A man emerged and challenged me, then bested me in a martial arts confrontation.

There was no malice to this, instead a sense that this was something that had to happen, like a coming of age. The group had gathered to restore a balance.

Then I was on the set of a film I worked on years ago. I picked up a locket (from the realm of the gods?). A group of Mesoamerican men lived on the film set. There were photos from throughout history on the wall.

In a later dream, I followed around an emanciated Kurt Cobain trying to get Xerox copies of the song lyrics he was writing. Then I understood that I couldn't take the lyrics outside of the dream space we'd all beeen sharing for the Oneironauticum because everyone who was present had a vested share in them because they were all part of the dream experience. Then Richard explained that it was fine because the value was going to appreciate astronomically and would be worth $10,000 by the end of the night.

The Dream Repeated, by Jennifer

In a medieval castle or small walled city. I'm on a height with a view of it all dressed all in white. My outfit is simultaneously flowing silken robes and a hipster leather affair with high boots and feathers in my hair. I'm there to perform a ritual, perhaps a human sacrifice.

A man is brought to me to participate in the ritual. I'm unclear whether as an assistant or as the sacrificial victim. I reject him as insufficient. Then my sister is there and I don't want her to see what I'm doing so in a flash I'm down at the bottom gate of the city castle, ready to begin the ritual again.

Then a new version of the dream begins. This time I have a better vantage point and I'm dressed in red. I understand this as the upgraded new version of the dream, the 4S release (I just got a new 4S iPhone, upgraded from my 3G).

The Mead, remote dream by Bill

In my dream there was a parking lot I crossed a lot and in one space was always parked a different vintage prototype vehicle that never made it to market but looked really great, usually from the late fifties or early sixties.

One car worth mentioning was from Chevrolet; the Chevy Mead. it was that perfect 1962 stock metallic turquoise color used by Chevy in those years, and it was more than a little sporty - there was a HUGE engine under the hood, you could tell just by it's size and it was designed to be appealing to young men who liked macho cars with stripes and power. But the main thing that was interesting about it was that it contained a full camper in a hatchback design. There was a stove, pantry and full sink and a sleeping area. The only way I could figure out how so many things were in such a small space was that us people were somehow made smaller, to about the size of 3' tall, once we were in 'the magic circle' of the hatchback area, thus making the scale of everything such that the contents of the Mead was larger to us.
it was pretty great.

There were other cars that were parked there from time to time, but the Mead was the coolest of them all. Half-muscle car and half-camper. We all would have loved the Mead.

Images throughout time, remote dream by Joseph

First of all, I got to say that the tea was awful haha. But the technique was drinking all in one row ! that worked for me. All I could see in my dreams was like any other day passing by at a very fast rate. I could see all whats going on in the surroundings, and so days passed by, seeing snow, rain, days gone, I can estimate that not all I saw was a day by day experience, I'm sure it probably passed a few days between every thing I can remember, It was like seeing a year passing by in some few short instances, not sure if it were images of past or a near future, I expect that were of future. Then the dream turn very different, like I passing a door then all the things become something closer to many movies, I passed like some pirates ships, then crossed a door, and dream turn into crossing a jungle, then entering a deeply and dark part of a cave dream turned into a battle like in some spartan movie, kinda fun haha.

My mother also tried the tea, but she went trough a very different experience, she's sick, got some cancers, but she has never refused to live, to walk, even when doctors said that she will never will going to walk again, she fight and in some months she returned to walk. Her dream was that in some other past live she had a son/girl (not sure about it) that was quadriplegic, and she couldn't stand the pain, so in conclusion she had to experience by herself how much hard was it.

It was a very interesting experience for bot of us.

Losing the Dream, by Stacy

I dreamed that I lost the dream. Several of my friends were trying to help me find it, going up and down stairs looking for it. We never found it.

Journalist in South America, by Dean

I was a journalist who'd been embedded with a group of South American students/terrorists. They wanted something from the government and had taken up arms to get it. Someone started throwing grenades so I started running. I was running in a zig zag pattern to avid the grenades and just barely missed me.

The weirdest thing about the night wasn't actually the dreams, though. All night long, I was really sexually aroused. It really lasted. That's unusual.

The Toss, remote dream by Niki

I took the Calea herb syrup for my dream experience Sat Aug 4th. Fell asleep nice and easy, slept really well that night. I had one dream that seemed to sick with me, but otherwise it was a normal night of dreaming. The dream included myself, my brother, and his wife. We were in the kitchen cooking a big pot of spaghetti. The water was boiling up, not over the pot, but just up above it. Inside, along with the pasta, was another empty pot and lid. I asked my sister-in-law about it and she said she was just washing the dishes since there was so much extra water. I didn't think much of it, in fact I thought it was a good idea. The dream pretty much ended there.

So while it was a more or less normal night of dreaming, I did have one experience that was not normal for me. Some time in the night I was just barely awake and I threw the pillow across the bed. I don't remember it being associated with a dream, it was just a weird act. I just laughed a little and went back to sleep.

Magical Love Making, by Emily

This incredibly marvelous, sexy man and I made love and our love making cast incredible light patterns with wonderful healing properties. People arranged to have us come and make love near their homes and businesses to benefit them.

Later that night, I had strong flashes of Mexican weavings, geometric patterns in vivid contrasting colors.

Minutes of the August, 2012 Oneironauticum

Present at the last Oneironauticum were hosts Vibrata and David S, and attendees Erik, Dean, Christine, David W, Stacy, Katherine, Richard, Zak, Naropa, Emily, and yours truly, Jennifer.

We also had a guest of honor sitting on our dream altar: A live Calea Zacatechichi plant:

Between arrival time, around 9:00 pm, and bedding down, we discussed various dream topics, as we usually do. For some time, we discussed Hypnogogia, the state of brainwave fluctuation that occurs as we fall asleep. For many people—in my experience, particularly those with short circadian rhythms—hypnogogia is the richest sleep cycle for dreams. Erik, Vibrata, and Dean, all short circadian rhythm people, share this tendency. Erik talked about the aural experiences he sometimes has during hypnogogia. He described hearing something like a radio station, playing wonderful music that he can tune into for seemingly long stretches of time. Dean reported a similar experience.

Richard then regaled us with tales of his experiences of learning astral projection. His technique involves maintaining awareness during hypnogogia, up to the point of actually falling asleep. At that point, just as you enter a slumbering state, you roll over on the bed. When it works, the astral body will separate from the physical body. Richard reported that, when he achieved this goal, he found himself outside his body, in his own room, able to see himself lying in the bed and to note the details of his actual bedroom.

I then pulled out my new favorite toy, the Zeo Sleep Manager. This device measures sleep cycles via a sensor-equipped headband that captures some level of brainwave activity while you sleep. This machine has been somewhat of a revelation to me. For the last decade, I’ve taught classes and given workshops and presentations during which I’ve presented a chart that explains the human sleep cycle. More or less the explanation you’ll read in textbooks, the chart I put together looks like an amalgamation of all the sleep charts I’ve seen over the years. But now that I have access to my own data, I realize how totally variable not only my sleep cycle is from the textbook standard, but even how much variance there is for me from night to night.

My Version of the Standard Textbook Dream Chart

Some of My Own Dream Charts

After looking at sleep charts, we gathered together and drank our Calea Zacatechichi. Attendees chose between a tea I’d brewed and an alcohol extraction I’d made with the alchemical advice of friend of Oneironauticum Dale Pendell. Both concoctions tasted hellishly bitter. Four of our number also smoked some of the Calea. Then we went to bed.

In the morning, we shared our dreams over brunch. As a general trend, people experienced much more vivid dreams during the first part of the night, after we’d drunk the Calea. Most of us felt this ran counter to our normal pattern of remembering longer and more detailed dreams from the second half of the night. A few of our numbers tried waking up at 5:00, just before periods of REM get longer (see above chart). They reported vivid dreams throughout the night.

As happens often at the Oneironauticum, some common themes arose among dreams. Many of us had meta-dreams about dreams, or about the Oneironauticum event and the dreamers who participated in person. The color red appeared in more than one dream, as did Central and South American references. A couple dreams involved repeating versions of the dream. Several dreamers also reported unusual physical components to their dreams, such as arousal, unusual heat, and in the case of one remote dreamer, the throwing of a pillow across the room.