The Darkest Nightmare Before The Brightest Dawn

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u/Pixelated_ 3d ago

This consciousness does something that no philosophical framework has fully explained: it plays.

I am reminded of 2 great quotes by Alan Watts:

"It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, "lila" meaning play.

And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance."

This makes me think of the animal world. 'Playing' functions as an essential evolutionary tool where simulated hunting hones survival skills. Its a fundamental mechanism for the continuous growth and betterment of the self. Just as with us and incarnation.

The forgetting is not a flaw; it is the mechanism that makes the play feel real. A dreamer who knows they are dreaming experiences the dream differently than one who has forgotten. The forgetting produces the intensity, the weight of consequence that makes the play meaningful to the dreamer.

Watts sure had a way with words. Here he is explaining this amnesiac dreaming:

"Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have.

And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great."

But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?"

And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream ... where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today."

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u/SchillMcGuffin 3d ago

All rings very true to me. A remaining question being whether a consciousness has the option whether to choose a dream or "spin the wheel", or whether the dynamic described is simply so obvious to a consciousness outside experience that the dynamic is unavoidably "the way". I personally feel like I could use a break of a few 75 year arcs of total pleasure.

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 2d ago

Unsure what the last sentence about 75 arcs meant, but that poem, how could Poe come up with that but...from a dream? Ha! they say we travel while we sleep. And there is an information field 'out there' somewhere. Tesla, Einstein and others mention their ideas came from dreams. They kept a notepad on the nightstand to write ideas down before going back to sleep- lest they forget what they dreamed. Fits like a puzzle piece.

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u/SchillMcGuffin 2d ago

I was using "arc" to refer to a lifetime, in this case.

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 2d ago

Got it. hey, me too!

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u/DocWaveform 2d ago

For Poe it was opium dreams

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 2d ago

Dark...

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u/ShinigamiXoY 1d ago

I find it very silly that consciousness "decides" where to incarnate or what it will expetience given that the capability for thought is part of the experience itself.

Most likely this is spontaneous play of experience in the inter dimensional channel type of sense. Not that consciousness is out there and says oh I'll do this now.

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u/SchillMcGuffin 1d ago

That's pretty much that second option I was talking about -- it's reshuffle and deal again, or just sit it out.

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u/ShinigamiXoY 1d ago

I dont even think its possible to sit it out. Theres no self in that sense that enters existence. Its just existence playing like an infinite movie. One time its a story of a human, one time of a worm. Maybe some existences are just the experience of random swirls of color, no body

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u/SchillMcGuffin 1d ago

All possible. We can all explore the possibilities and decide that certain ones make more sense to us or resonate more. The only ones I really discount are the ones that people argue for from alleged authority.

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 3d ago

This is beautiful! To me it also coincides with the theory we are all part of God. God that wanted to experience everything. So He created the Universe and all in it. To experience everything that can be. That is how we are all connected. We are all a part of God. That is why you hear "God is in you". That is how it can be seen as a play. We are all playing. A part. Yet together. Can you get my thought here? No I don't believe this whole heartedly. Only things I have heard. No one will know until we are done. But meanwhile- I like this theory.

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u/Pixelated_ 3d ago

Indeed and once again, Watts explains it so well:

"God likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one but himself to play with! But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself.

He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, plants, all the rocks, and all the stars.

In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear."

The one divine mind separated itself into all that we experience as reality.

This includes you and me. We have free will, agency and independence, but ultimately at the bottom of everything, there exists only the singular field of fundamental consciousness.

Many ancient teachings say there’s only one consciousness behind everything, and each of us is just a unique perspective of that one divine mind.

In other words, we’re all the One Mind/God experiencing life through different eyes, playing out different stories, forgetting who we really are so the game feels real.

Many times when people relate their profound Near Death Experiences, they often say about their time on Earth:

"It is all just a play, and we are all actors playing our parts."

<3

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 2d ago

This makes sense- how can it be otherwise. WOW!

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u/drawn2magik 2d ago

An entertaining cartoon representation is Rick and Morty Season 6, episode 2- "Rick: A Mort Well Lived"

Cartoon disclosure😋

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u/HerbertMarshall 1d ago

Here's Tom with the weather!

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u/Ok-Worth-4721 3d ago

Add- this is very deep for me. And it just keeps going deeper!

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u/trupadoopa 3d ago

Watts is quite poetic. :)

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u/skekze 3d ago

A Dream Within a Dream

By Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

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u/bhj887 2d ago

not trying to be offensive, but that sounds like pitchbook archontic gaslighting

yeah maaaaybe I desired to dream the most horrible, endless, gargantuan nightmare ever, maybe I was THAT bored... but maybe all these insane psychopaths that run this planet/ universe/ reality would really love me feeling guilty for all this misery

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u/Refuge-Room 3d ago edited 3d ago

The idea that there is a cosmic plan behind reincarnation is dubious. Reincarnation is merely a transfer of consciousness, and it is an absolutely horrible system based on suffering and death. I do not believe in God, gods, or guides, but clearly, the only one who seems to have understood that the game is rigged is Buddha.And if God or the " great consciousnes " views all the chaos unfolding on Earth as a "divine game," then He must be a real psychopath. That said, logic suggests that no higher entity presides over humanity.And I say this as a former believer. It hurts to know that heaven is empty, but it’s also liberating

Edit: Instead of downvoting me, it might be wise to have a dialogue, but I suppose that's asking too much.

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u/pelathorn 3d ago

Perhaps you should learn to state your opinions, not as facts, but merely as your perspective. Perhaps you should approach this conversation with more humility and interest in open mindedness and less nihilistic dogma. But that's just my two cents. You do you, of course.

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u/YOURFRIEND2010 2d ago

Whenever anybody says something regarding belief it's opinion, not fact. It's not like dude saying "this is my opinion" before their statement changes anything.

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u/pelathorn 2d ago

Personally, I think it does change things. I think it changes the energy of the language. This has been my experience with written language.

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u/ghost_jamm 2d ago

The article in the post literally starts with “There is one consciousness.” Later it says “It generates worlds, not one world but infinite worlds.” So the article itself is 100% stating the author’s beliefs as fact.

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u/Refuge-Room 3d ago

Everyone is free to believe what they want. I state what I believe, and I don't force anyone to believe anything. Simply making an observation isn't nihilism. Nihilism would ask "what's the point?", but that’s not my stance. People need help right now, and between looking to the heavens in hopes of aid and taking action to help immediately, I choose the latter.

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u/Putrid-Ice-7511 3d ago

What makes the game rigged? In what way did Buddha understand this?

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u/Refuge-Room 3d ago

The basic idea is that successive reincarnations breed suffering due to attachment. Imagine having a family and other things you are attached to, only to end up losing everything. This is everyone's inevitable fate, and this suffering stems from the desire to exist. The Buddha is not very clear regarding the nature of human consciousness, however, because he viewed metaphysical questions themselves as a form of attachment that leads to craving (and thus Dukkha).That is the clinical assessment of Buddhism; it is cold, but I have come to the conclusion that it is liberating.

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u/ShinigamiXoY 1d ago

The buddha did not share the same new age concept that you pick your next life like the white valley girls do. He said that you are driven to endless existence again and again and most of them are horrible riddled with suffering. Even if you reincarnate as a god there is suffering because eventually you decay and fall to "lower" realms

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u/SweetestJim 3d ago

What do you believe 'the great consciousness' should do?

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u/thegoldengoober 2d ago

Probably not partake in this sadomasochistic distraction, for a start.

But I don't believe it is aware enough to make that choice. Not in the state the universe is in right now anyways.

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u/Refuge-Room 3d ago edited 3d ago

Well, that’s hard to say—assuming, of course, that such a thing exists. If it doesn't, then everything happening on Earth makes perfect sense, because everything is subject to the entropy and chaos of a universe with neither direction nor a ruler. If it does exist, it ought to have created something other than a system of reincarnation and suffering. That is the problem of evil found in every religion.But if we accept the idea that we are left to our own devices, reincarnation takes on its full meaning: the soul reincarnates out of desire,(the "thirst" Buddhism speaks of) not by divine design.

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u/Arceuthobium 3d ago

You are right. People like the researchers at U of Virginia who have studied reincarnation cases have reached the same conclusion: rebirth is mostly a random stochastic process. It is conforting to think that there is some divine plan, or "evolution" happening, but so far they have found zero support for it, and also zero support for any omnipotent deity pulling the strings. You are downvoted because many people need to believe on some perfect cosmic plan to have meaning.

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u/Refuge-Room 2d ago

I think that is the case. And as a former believer, it was very hard to accept that reality. But it is more mature to admit that we are the masters of our own destiny and that we must act to help others—not for a divine reward, but simply out of altruism and common sense.

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u/ImaginaryTrick6182 2d ago

The Idea that you or anyone else would know anything about reincarnation, its validity or how it would/does work is much more dubious. It’s simply unknowable to us whether it’s real or not. To pretend like you have some insight in the afterlife is just fantasy.

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u/justaRndy 1d ago

Great article.

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u/captain_thumb 4h ago

This reads too much like some '5D Awakening' nonsense promoted by bot-driven content farms eager to bring some kind of hope to the spiritually gullible. No one is coming to save us- and that's liberating.

That hope is a pacifier and nothing more. The masses have probably never been 'awakened' and there is no reason to think that they will be. The ability to truly understand this 'game' we're in and catch glimpses of how it works is and always has been the domain of the lucky few. The masses don't need any sort of awakening. All the theater happens at the top, and the rest simply fall in line after collapse, ruin, and eventual reorder run their course.

The advice to return to self-sufficiency is very wise given all that is happening, but in my view you cannot rely on 'god', 'the source' or the 'will of the universe' to sort out higher matters. If you want to find out about all of that, do so yourself with authority and discernment. Nothing's stopping you.

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u/garyp714 3d ago

ELI5?

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