1 result for (book:notp AND session:795 AND stemmed:life)
[... 15 paragraphs ...]
Even if such dreams are not recalled, they circulate through the psychological system, so to speak. They are responsible for the inventiveness and creativity of the species, even bringing new comprehensions that can be used to bear upon the life of the physical world.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
I am explaining this for now in terms of past, present, and future. You can only understand some concepts when they are given in that fashion. Taking that for granted, then, you are each born with the conscious knowledge of what has come before. Your brain is far from an empty slate, waiting for the first imprint of experience; it is already equipped with complete “equations,” telling you who you are and where you have come from. Nor do you wipe that slate clean, symbolically speaking, before you write your life upon it. Instead, you draw upon what has gone before: the experiences of your ancestors, back — in your terms now — through time immemorial.
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
Because dreams follow paths of association, they break through time barriers, allowing the individual to mix, match, and compare events from different periods of his life. All of this is done somewhat in the way that a child plays, through the formation of creative dream dramas in which the individual is free to play a million different roles and to examine the nature of probable events from the standpoint of “a game.”
(11:05.) In play, children adopt certain rules and conditions “for a time.” The child can stop at any time. Innumerable play events can occur with varying intensity, yet generally speaking the results cease when the game is over. The child plays at being an adult, and is a child again when his parents call, so the effects of the game are not long-lasting. Still, they are an important part of a child’s daily life, and they affect the way he or she relates to others. So in dreams, the events have effects only while dreaming. They do not practically intrude into waking hours — the attacking bear vanishes when you open your eyes; it does not physically chase you around the bedroom.
[... 11 paragraphs ...]