Terence Paul Fagan - The Dream Walkers Guide--The Advanced A-Z Guide to the Virtual World of Our Dreams

What is a dream?

The new philosophy/science of virtual dreaming.

The dream Virtual World represents the Real World.

Attending to the Real World: understanding Working Dreams.

The dream Virtual World also represents our memory -to give us our thoughts & imaginings -& our sleep-dreams!

Thinking and imagining are just special kinds of dreaming.

Sleep-dreaming -an illusive form of Resting Dream.

Lucid sleep-dreaming: being aware that one is just dreaming.

The Cartesian Dilemma: are we truly awake, or are we asleep -and just dreaming?

The Supreme Illusion of Virtual World Reality -thinking that our dream Virtual World is the Real World itself!

What substantially is a dream -is it composed of material substances or is it composed of immaterial substances?

Dream spinning: the genesis or creation of the dream Virtual World system by the brain!

Parapsychological Dream Experiences: ESP, PK, & dream premonition.

Transcendental Dream Experiences: OBEs, NDEs; and the issue of Life-After-Death.

To Valerie Joyce Fagan: my wonderful sister, and an intrepid global traveller in her time -and in her own way.

Dreams are at once the most intimate thing in our lives, and the most remarkable thing in our lives; but they are also the most mysterious, and least understood thing in our lives. When you go to sleep tonight, the chances are that at some stage you will have a sleep-dream . But what exactly is a sleep-dream; how is it created; what is its purpose -what does it do: what is its fundamental nature? This Dream Walkers guide aims to provide clear answers to these questions. I shall be your guide to dreams!

This book is a Dream walkers Guide. So, what is a dream walker? A dream walker is quite simply, that locus and focus of your anthropocentric being, an immaterial body-form which walks about in the landscape of your dreams, observing and acting upon things. The dream walker has many names: the dream homunculus, the shooter, the soul or spirit, even rather ambiguously -the self; but we shall mostly refer to it as the dream walker -truly the most romantic of names!

Ok, so we sleep-dream; but what really happens when we sleep-dream? Does our soul depart our sleeping body for distant realms -both real and unreal; to walk in strange, fantastic, even wild and forbidden lands; to see, hear and feel what are often wonderful, exotic and mysterious things; encounter people, perhaps spirits -other souls? Or does our brain create or spin a brilliant and colourful dream Virtual World system, and subject our body (a virtual representation of it) to be a walker in that often illusive dreamscape?

Science believes that at least in part the latter is the case; that our brain creates VIRTUAL DREAMS, raises a dream realm, inclusive of dream walker -to interact with things just as we do in real waking life. In sleep-dreaming the brain is said to raise this extraordinary, vivid, dynamic and often fantastic Virtual World system, to virtually portray our memory system in various ways, as a substitute or surrogate for interacting with the Real World when we are truly awake. The modern scientific approach to dreaming is largely secular; and treats the brain and its dreaming in natural or biological rather than traditional or religious terms.

Science, to its honour, certainly does not discount the possibility that we also have SPIRITUAL DREAMS, that we have a soul -which inhabits our brain, and which departs our sleeping body to walk distant realms; and indeed there are certain kinds of dream experience, both parapsychological and transcendent, which hint at this exciting possibility. It is just that there is a strong secular side to dreaming, Virtual dreaming, which must now be taken into consideration.

There are those scientists, whos views we must of course respect in this regard, who flatly discount the notion that dreams are in any way spiritual or are indicative of a soul: heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark, suggested one eminent scientist recently. But for most scientists, and other workers on dream theory such as myself; any rejection of soul-heaven-God and an afterlife, is thought way too premature; indeed counterproductive in the sense that it gives a false impression of what most of us working in the field actually think. For what both Virtual dreaming and spiritual dreaming strongly suggest, is that our brain and our mind are not one and the same thing -but two different things; and in this simple statement alone, we now have sound reason for considering the spiritual side of things -in a new and much warmer light.

Furthermore, in dreaming, we seem to be dealing with forces and processes going on in the brain, which are so strange, so enigmatic -so wonderful; that it would be shear folly to discount anything at this stage, not least a departing or travelling soul scenario. Ultimately of course it would be most desirable if there were to be a spiritual dream process in situ -we all want it to be true; but, as science correctly points out, we must not just presume it to be true, we must weigh all the arguments -and make our own judgments accordingly.

What do I -your dream guide, believe? I believe in both kinds of dreaming, both Virtual & spiritual: I believe that they can both mutually co-exist together . Yes, I fully embrace the biological concept of a Virtual Dream -indeed this book is largely devoted (through the A to Z guide) to explaining the new concept and largely secular language of Virtual Dreaming. But as you will discover when reading this book; I have certainly not given up the proverbial ghost -concerning a spiritual aspect to dreaming. Personal experience, both parapsychological and transcendent; plus insights from a deep working knowledge of the fundamentals of dreaming; give me a healthy respect for the spiritual scenario, and will not allow me to abandon it. Indeed if anything the opposite is true: I strongly suspect that there is something profoundly spiritual going on in the Cosmos; that there is an after-life, soul-heaven-God and so forth; and that dreaming is in some way integral to that extraordinary and wonderful process. But in this sense I feel like the tribal medicine man -or North American Indian, or shaman (spiritual leader), complete with headdress and rattle to hand, who has read the signs -and interpreted the dream!

So, this book is a Dream Walkers Guide: what is a dream walker, and what is this guide? Well, as we have previously described; a dream walker is quite simply, that locus and focus of our anthropocentric being, which walks about in the landscape of our dreams, observing and acting upon things. By advanced guide to dreams one means that this book explains the new language and concept of dream consciousness at a more progressive or slightly higher level than is to be found in a basic guide. It offers a deeper and more profound range of explanation, which I (your guide) hope will be of use to you in understanding your own dreaming. After all, you and I both dream -indeed we all dream; and in our dreams, you and I are each represented by this quite remarkable phenomenon -the dream walker. But there are two kinds of dream walker: the popular dream walker, the mystical dream walker of the people -the Spiritual dream walker; and the emergent dream walker of science, a secular dream walker -called the Virtual dream walker. A few words now about each: