In the last blog, I promised to discuss the multiple manifestations of ‘bare observing’ during our dreamtime and their importance for personal inner growth.

After a person begins studying dreams, he or she will notice that the focal point from which each dream is experienced is variable.  For example,

[1]  Most often, the actors and events comprising a dream are observed from the ergoegotic center without residing in any particular dream character.  Observing is disassociated from participating, somewhat like watching a movie.

[2] In some dreams, the experience unfolds as if the dreamer is operating (as an agent and receiver of actions) from one of his or her normal waking personas; though, the physical appearance may differ.  Usually the recognized ‘feeling of Me-ness’ is present.

[3]  In other dreams, our observing ergoegotic center resides in other dream characters–oftentimes changing during the dream.  That is, ‘Me-ness’ shifts from one dream persona to another. I imagine this is related to the fact that humans understand that other humans have their own minds–called ‘theory of minds’ in psychology.

[4] During  dreams organized around threat, some dreamers will experience ‘waking-up,’ while still immersed in REM sleep, most often so to escape the perceived dream threat.   When this occurs, the dream ego is experiencing the ever-present continuity between waking and dreaming reality; i.e., the two states of Type II reality are simultaneously realized.

People are often surprised when they leave REM and fully awaken since they truly believed that they were awake within the dream.  Sometimes, being unable to tell if they were dreaming or such dream events actually happened.

[5]  Lastly, there is ‘lucid dreaming’ or Jung’s ‘active imaging’ in which the dreamer has gained partial control over portions of the dream being constructed by the brain-mind so to guide his or her experience.   This could be called a ‘waking dream.’

Each of these different dreamtime experiences are normally of little importance for mundane life or in success in the Work exercises. What is of primary importance is the realization that: [a] ‘observing‘ is a function and not a thing, [b] each act of ‘observing‘ stems from a non-observable focal point, [c] such focal point unassociated with the artifactual self, and [d] Type II reality is a unified state and works equally during wakefulness and dreaming.

For it an esoteric truism, that none may reliably enter into Type III reality until he or she verifies the distinction between Type I and II realities and the continuity of the ergoegotic center functioning awake or asleep.

In the next blog, I shall move onto Type III Reality.