The ego and the dream state

[inavalan]

The ego skims the topmost surface of reality and experience.

This is not the result of any inherent egotistical quality. It is true that the ego's responsibility is with the relationship between the self and the physical environment. It must of necessity be focused within the confines of physical reality.

Nevertheless it is fully capable of perceiving far more than Western man allows it to perceive. Fear and ignorance and superstition quite obviously limit the potentialities of the ego, and therefore to some degree limit even its effectiveness within the physical universe.

The ego itself in many instances cannot experience directly certain intuitions and psychological experiences, but it can experience them insofar as it can be aware of them on an intellectual basis. When training forces the ego to become too rigid, and to limit its perception of other realities, then the intuitions will not be accepted by the ego because intuitional experience will not fit into the framework of reality as the ego sees it.

The ego, because of its responsibility, will therefore fight against what it then considers an unknown threat to survival. Struggles are therefore initiated which are entirely unnecessary. We want to bring intuitional comprehension to a point where the ego will accept it.

In our dream experiments therefore, this is one of the purposes that we hope to achieve. The ego is not equipped of itself to delve directly into nonphysical realities. If the ego is trained to be flexible however, it will accept such knowledge from the subconscious, and other wider horizons of the self.

Our ego must have its feet upon the solid earth, it is out of its element, naked and in an unfamiliar environment, outside of the normal characteristics of physical existence. Its basic distrust of dream experience is necessary for the overall balance of the personality. Physical reality is a rock to which the ego must cling, and from which it achieves its power, energy, position, and reason for existence.

This provides necessary balance and necessary control, and results in the sturdy anchorage of the personality in the environment in which it must survive. You have here one of the main reasons why you must request the subconscious to enable you to recall your dreams. The ego would see no reason for such a memory, and on general principles attempts to repress them.

Again however, through this excellent balance and these fine controls, the ego will accept knowledge derived from the dream state, as a man might accept a message from a distant land in which he does not care to dwell, and whose environment would both mystify and frighten him.

In our dream experiments then, we will allow you to bring such messages to the ego. We will attempt to map this exotic country in such a way that the ego can understand what is there in terms of resources, that can be used for its own benefit. We shall map this dream state from various perspectives, until you know it very well.