Through this site -through working out my ideas here and bouncing some of them off the other people here- I'm starting to come to the notion that I am always at work.  I am always working on something.  That something is not what it may appear to be to an outside observer.  It is not the work project I'm doing, nor the house chores, nor the fixing of my car or the writing of a computer program.  No, it may only appear that those are the things I'm working on.  The real thing that I am working on on is my consciousness -the the lens through which I perceive my life experiences.  

I am going through some pretty challenging times in my personal life at the moment, and every day affords me ample opportunity to face fears and frustrations and to decide whether to face them in the same old ways or in new ways.  I've surprised myself many times now... sometimes on the positive side (as in, "wow, that went much better than I ever expected!"), and sometimes on the not so positive (as in, "really??  I still behave like that??").  Either way, I'm learning and growing a lot right now.  Through it, the biggest and toughest lesson I'm learning is to welcome the process of learning and growing.  

In that last sentence, I stalled on the word "welcome" for quite some time.  I had initially written "love", but honestly, learning and growing is very uncomfortable, and who loves being uncomfortable all the time?  Yet, I know that the change I so desperately want for myself and my life is on the other side of that discomfort.  The only way to free myself from the self-created, tortuous prison of my core beliefs about myself and the world around me is to push myself through those fears and discover them to be what they've always been: lies. 

In our dream life, in the subtle world, our fears can and do manifest as the objects, people, and/or situations we find in there.  A few times I have squarely faced down personified fears in my dreams and awakened the next day with a vary real increased sense of vitality and strength that stayed with me for days after the experience.  In other words, those subtle world experiences changed the lense through which I perceive my life experiences -i.e., my consciousness.

We all work on our consciounesses 24/7.  There's no escaping it.  So why don't we try to make the most of it?  Smile!

I have a question that I am hoping science can answer one day. If scientists are studying our sleep patterns and how to predict whether we can remember dreams, then I would sincerely like to add this to their to-do list. 

You don't have to do much research to find some pretty hair-raising stories about sleepwalking. And this makes the word 'sleepwalking' a sort of misnomer, doesn't it? What I mean is, people do all kinds of things while they are asleep and we tend to use the word 'sleepwalking' to describe all of these activities. Everything from crocheting in a completely dark room to washing dishes to driving to sex - all of these things are called sleepwalking when the person is in that state of consciousness that is akin to sleep. That is, not fully conscious as in a waking state. While some people have even carried on quite lengthy conversations while in this state, in most cases they report having no recollection of their experiences upon waking.

People have done some fairly amazing things while sleeping that they would never attempt while awake. In 2005 a 15 year old girl was rescued from atop a 130 foot crane after she climbed it while sleepwalking. A passerby noticed her sleeping on the couterweight of the crane and called the police. The firemen who came to her aid were afraid to wake her for fear she would get startled and fall to her death. They ended up calling her cell phone so that a familiar sound would get her attention, and once she was aware of her situation she was safely brought down by the firemen.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-354802/Sleepwalker-age-15-curled-crane.html

I have a real question here: scientifically speaking, how do people do it?

Normally, during sleep our bodies become relaxed and our muscles don't do much until we wake up. But the kinds of activities sleepwalkers do are sometimes very intricate tasks that require lots of cognitive ability and fine motor skills. Even a seemingly mundane thing like crocheting takes a lot of concentration and patience - so how did a sleepwalking woman make considerable progress with her crocheting project in complete darkness? One could say something about 'muscle memory' but what about the colors being used? Climbing a 130 foot crane not only takes a certain amount of bravery, but to walk 40 feet horizontally along its arm would take the balance and steeled nerves of an experienced acrobat.

A doctor who studies sleep disorders who was interviewed for the story of the 15 year old girl said, "Anything you can do while awake, you can do while sleepwalking, and of course, without the fear factor."

Why did the doctor say, "of course, without the fear factor"? I believe it's because we are in a totally different state of consciousness that is more aligned with the subtle world. Have you ever had a dream that you were doing something normally considered dangerous in the physical world, and yet you were totally unafraid in the dream? Because in the subtle world, there are all kinds possibilities that simply don't exist in the physical world - and we all innately know this because we spend (on average) 37% of our lives in the subtle world.

I need to take this a step further - hey science, I'm talkin to you!

Those activities that require so much movement and concentration - how do we accomplish them while we are not engaging with full awareness of our surroundings? It seems to me that the ability to control one's body is not only coming from a different state of consciousness, but also a different part of the brain from the one we normally use to accomplish those tasks. Some of these tasks, such as driving, require all of our senses and concentration while awake, and one small lapse of attention can cause a lot of pain and damange. What part of our mind takes over, has no fear, and safely guides the individual through doing these things while asleep? And, noting that most people don't remember their sleepwalking acitivites, why is sleepwalking commonly associated with a type of short-term amnesia?

I wonder what kinds of things might be found to treat things like paralysis, Parkinson's, MS, or even plain old, run-of-the-mill anxiety. Let's get on this please...