I have not tried much outreach to the lucid dreaming and "shamanistic beliefs" culture since posting to alt.dreams.lucid a while ago. I've decided to start looking a little more for people using specialized blog search engines, having realized that many sites are not indexed by Google. Even relatively famous ones are banned, like Alex Chiu--controversial crackpot who sells immortality cures and rants at length in a stylized way about his ideas. It's ingenious in its own right.
(As the Pet Shop Boys ask in their latest video: "Is stupid really stupid, or just a different kind of smart?")
Today's outreach effort led me to come across Tribe.net, which I had not really thought to check. Because I distrust social networking sites as ad-riddled when compared with livejournal (no ads, open source) I'd stayed away from it, assuming it would be more or less as difficult to use as Myspace. But it's not quite as bad. I found a community called "Foot in Two Worlds" which really phrases my central problem properly--I don't want to talk so much about recreational lucid dreaming or how to get better at it, because what I really need aren't newbies but rather a support group of people who are already at my level.
Responding to this post, I had some commentary to statements made in a comment:
*"Most of us would be diagnosed as mildly delusional at best and schizophrenic at worst, and don't think it hasn't happened already to some."/**
Certainly today's psychiatry is a dangerous place for those navigating the world of new experiences. Especially so for those brave enough to embrace their visions, and who perceive enough difference in their own intelligence relative to the local authorities that they become radically experimental in their attempts to escape the Matrix.
When first going through some of the changes in my perceptions and abilities, it was around the time that the movie A Beautiful Mind came out. I was blown away by the similarities with John Nash's backgrounds and his theories, and I proposed that maybe he wasn't actually crazy after all. Someone I knew, who had a spiritualist leaning, said: "Who said he was 'crazy'? Did you notice the title of the movie?" A good point.
Perhaps the issue is not that he wasn't seeing valid things, but just that he reacted in ways that didn't lead to his benefit. (I've heard it rumored Nash does not take medication anymore but merely keeps his pattern-finding in check through careful control of who he associates with and by gathering feedback from various sources before taking any major actions.)
*"I fear the day when they DO take us seriously enough to actually put some energy behind their aversion to those empathic enough for it to effect our daily lives."/**
I had a very vivid dream many years ago where I was at a shopping mall, playing a game of hide-and-go-seek...looking for people. And I somehow understood that my friends and I were psychically taking control of unwitting shoppers, and then once we had "possessed" them we would play in their bodies--doing as we wished. However I received a jolt when a car in the parking lot exploded, and I realized that it was one of my psychic friend's cars in which they had been in a trance. They'd been bombed by fearful humans, who the moment they figured out what was going on were taking a scorched-earth policy to destroying us.
Purely in my head or not...I later saw this same theme of a battle played out in the X-Men movies--where the existence of mutants who have such powers makes those who do not afraid and organize against them. Dr. X wishes to convince the mutants to be protectors and uplifters of humanity, while Magneto wishes mutants to take their rightful place as rulers of Earth. It's difficult to choose a side; one's patience can wear thin standing up for closed-minded and seemingly-not-very-smart primates. Especially ones whose only reaction to analogies is "why are you bringing up movies to make your points, they're not real"...aaarg!
I myself have had conflicting thoughts on the matter, and perhaps the dream above is a reflection of my ambivalence with regard to "normals". But my overall point is that maybe it is, indeed, safer for the moment if these ideas are not taken seriously. Yet it does suggest that those who do understand need to be extra careful about recruiting and guiding...crawling the search engines to find those who are not going to get sound advice from the medical industry (or a fee-charging psychic with ulterior motives and questionable abilities).
I suppose being a guide is a self-selected duty, if you happen to realize you have the means and patience to reach out with whatever telepathic or technical tools you might have. (Is there a difference?)
I'll try to keep any truly profound thoughts I have noted in duplicate on this journal along with the tribe site, as I do not trust tribe archivally. It's also not possible to link directly to my particular comments.