I had one of my reccuring dreams last night.
I dream I am at the start of an exciting fairground ride, but to get there I have to go down this tunnel (kind of like a water flume, but the first part has a really tight bend in it that I get stuck in).
Wonder what that is a metaphor for

Anyway, in the dream, just prior to this I am on the roof of an old building.
I remember in the dream, at this point I usually slip on some green moss and fall to my death, I wonder if I can do it different.
I manage to get past the point where I slip and get into the building via a broken window.

Once inside I am ready to enter the tunnel.
I am worried I have put on a lot of weight recently and will get stuck.
By the way, I was an eleven pound eleven and three quarter ounce baby.
Yes, think about it…
Ouch!

So I decide to try something different.
I choose a positive mindset about the tunnel before entering it.
I choose to be aware of my body and to be centred in myself.

When I get through, my son is there on the ride with me and there are bubbles. I am travelling backwards very fast and I duck, worried about banging the back of my head on something overhead.

So what do you think?

Reading through the unconscious metaphors, am I a born again positive?

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

mark ty-wharton, creative thinker | innovator | visionary

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Without adding story, here are the facts.

Make of it what you will.

I am not making any claims here.

I was driving back from dropping my child at school and had slowed to 30 MPH for a village.

While driving through the village I experienced a very odd tingling just below my ears and along my jaw.

The sensation reminded me of many times in the past where I had experienced a similar feeling (not an emotion).

I ended up very deep in thought about a visit to the zoo with a friends baby daughter, who I predicted would be into animal rights, she is…

It’s pretty specific isn’t it.

She was pre-language, so did I influence her?

As I drove out of the village, I forgot to speed up. And in my day dream, I spotted a black shape moving ahead of me, but something was up!

On a blind corner, on my side of the road, was a black VW Passat saloon which narrowly missed me and ducked back into the oncoming traffic.

By the time I reacted and hit the horn he was already behind me.

It was as if I was in a trance.

My awareness returned to the car and I realised I would normally be on the wrong edge of the speed limit of 60MPH on this particular route.

Had I arrived at that point in the road seconds earlier, there would have been a very big bang!

Another looking glass moment, brought to you by…

Mark Ty-Wharton X

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I’ve woken this morning nursing a slowly churning stomach.
I dreamed about a girl called Jo.

I was in a house with my old friend Mark Stubbs.
We were preparing for her arrival.
She was a TV presenter in the dream.
She was to be an important guest.
She was also my ex-girlfriend, yet I told no-one.

I was charging around being very domesticated with a hoover.
She arrived.

I didn’t see her face, she was driving a huge baby blue American truck.
She was actually a character from my past.

Then I remembered calling her.
She had gone to Scotland with a friend.
This guy lived upstairs from her Finsbury Park apartment.
They had been camping or to a festival.
It was arranged before we started dating.

I remember being anxious about it before she went.
I was worried she would sleep with the guy.
I wanted to be cool.
So I said nothing.

When she came back I called her.
She was on the phone, gushing with excitement.
“I can’t go out with you any more” I said.
I knew it was the wrong decision.
I felt it in my stomach.

“Why not”, she wanted a reason… “Please tell me why”?

I couldn’t.

She was my best friends girl.

I had cheekily asked for her number, then worse, called her and invited her out behind his back.
Then I stole her from him.

Because of my own insecurities, I was afraid anyone else could do the same to me.
My anxiety was, she would sleep with anyone.

Maybe she did?
Later it caused the death of my friend.

So what is this feeling?

Am I still anxious, or is it guilt?

I watched YES MAN the other night.

It is beautifully put together and the portrayal of romance in the film is almost perfect.
Life isn’t like that!

In the film, Carl Allen makes a covenant with Terrence Bundley, a guy who runs seminars to teach people to say YES to life.
Carl agrees to say YES to everything.
Carl believes if he says no, bad things will befall him.

It reminds me of Landmark Education.
There is a part of a Landmark course around incompletions.
We were encouraged to find people from our past and apologise to them.
If they are dead, you write them a letter to complete.
Everything left unsaid is said.
If you don’t do it, you are stuck with the incompletion forever.
Another covenant perhaps?
Get it complete or bad feelings will befall you.

Even if I had Jo sitting in front of me right now, I wouldn’t know where to start.
Nothing left unsaid? I can’t even remember it all now.
She was outgoing, I was an anxious wreck.

My best friend is dead, I once wrote him a letter.
So why the slowly churning stomach.
Is there still an incompletion?
Of course there is.

But, does every incompletion constitute repeated contemplation on the matter?
Perhaps it is time to break the covenant I made with Landmark.

Perhaps it is time to say I am not proud of what I did, but it is in the past.
It is my history and it does not make me who I am.
I am not the sum of my past actions.
I am free.
I am creating myself from my future actions and intentions.
Right here, right now.

So do I need to find Jo and explain?
Even in my dreams?
Can I cure my churning stomach?
You bet I can.
I can have a nice cup of tea and smile at the memory.

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

I just dreamed that I was at the top of a huge tower (like the Blackpool Tower) and I had to move from one side of the tower to the other by climbing through the the red oxide lattice wrought iron work.

Now normally, you wouldn’t get me to the top of a ladder without some level of complaint.

I was terrified, locked rigid to the spot, looking down.

In my dream the World was ending.

So, I simply thought “What is the worst that can happen?”

I could die!

Then with the realisation life is about to end anyway, I simply CHOSE not to be scared and started to move across the tower, looking down in awe of the height.

The significance of the dream is, we ALWAYS have choice.

Having participated on courses like Landmarks Forum and Essence, I have direct experience of real life changes I have made.

Fear is actually one of these, in my book The Logic Of Attraction I explain how to overcome it.

Once down from the tower I found myself doing other things differently as well.

I somehow found myself running a Duran Duran show from a Yamaha QY20 and Simon was singing through an old spring reverb (so much nicer than auto-tune).

He started to look annoyed as one of my sound engineer friends took centre stage and mimed the sound samples he had played on the record.

I wonder if Frank Sinatra is getting his royalty from Electric Barbarella!

I reminded Simon the world was ending and suddenly he was on stage surrounded by chocolate gateaux and Becks.

He looked at me and said “fuck it” then threw down his microphone and started shovelling cake into his face.

Andy was guzzling beer.

They reminded me of Ed and Oucho!

Next I was on a motorcycle avoiding a war zone in a desert (not dessert, Simon was already doing enough of that).

The complexity of the plot at this point is too jagged to recall, however my bike did turn into our family car and it ran out of fuel.

At the petrol station a queue formed miles down the road.

A man offered to sell me organic deisel and gave me a cup full to get me to his house. It looked like cooking oil to me with something horrid floating on top of it. He poured more of it on Gina’s silver fur coat than into the car.

I kept thinking “I can bloody well make this stuff, why buy it from him, when I can do it myself”.

I personally almost never know if I am making the right decision, for me, till after I am done with it.

I may spend a considerable amount of time and energy seeking something, only to find when I get it, it is not what I wanted at all.

I almost beleieve the things we truly need in life, come to us in random, inspired moments.

So what is the significance of this?

Time to do things differently?

Time to give up accountability in fear and choose again?

Time to take my first step along the high wire perhaps.

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

I love my life, I really do, but am I really living it? Or will I live it tomorrow, when time has already been and gone?

There are versions of the life I could have lived, lost out there in the sands of time because of the choices I’ve made.
The obvious ones are forgotten lovers.

I have fallen in love with several people during my life, and with the exception of my current relationship, I almost never recognize it at the time.
It used to be hard to distinguish between a person who comforted my anxiety and someone who really lit me up.
I can count on one hand the people I didn’t do enough for and in turn they slipped through these same fingers in one way or another.

Even in my current relationship I am now wondering if I am doing enough to nurture it’s longevity for a lifetime.
It is easy to fall into a routine as love blossoms. I have everything I want and more, perhaps I need to remind my partner of this more often.

I awoke from a dream earlier and it was so real, for a moment I thought it was really happening.
When I was 16 I fell in love with someone a lot younger than me.
When I was 18 or 19 I left a relationship I was in to be with that person.
I was only with her for a matter of moments, but the experience was amazing.
More significant things happened in that week of my teenage life than in any other.
I redefined my taste in music and experienced the timeless bliss of love in summer meadows, wondering at the nature of the Universe.

What happened next was a bit of a life changing event.
Under massive pressure from my friends, I was persuaded to return to my original pining girlfriend.
I was told that knocking around with a load of 15 and 16 year olds, going to parties with them, just wasn’t cool.
Getting back with my original girlfriend massaged my ego, for a split second she was flatteringly attentive.
Familiar ground and a reunion late at night led to me walking home in turmoil.
Stupidly, I succumbed to everyone else’s advice and made a wrong decision (for me).

I don’t think I saw the other girl for many years after that.
Somewhere in the back of my mind some infinite possibilities were lost.
Somewhere in the pit of my stomach 30 years on I can occasionally remember the feeling of separation.
Not for the first time, I had given up love, for the opinion of others. I was a fool!

Within days, the original relationship went back to being a roller coaster ride of jealousy, even dominated my life for 8 months when I moved to London shortly afterwards.
So what do I think might have happened if I had stood up to my peers?
Who knows, I may even have stayed in my home town? I might even be there today…

I actually have a recurring dream where I am a bit older and walk the route to the girl’s house.
In my dreams we are together under all sorts of different circumstances.
Last night I was in Los Angeles going to meet her at a party.
And when I wake up, I almost never realize I am 46 years old and have a daughter the same age this girl was when I first met her.

I haven’t seen her in years, yet a part of her is somehow stuck with me.
Some of the things we did are like photographic memories.
But why does this relationship stick in my mind?
I don’t think she is someone I need to suddenly have in my life thirty years on. I don’t even think I should have done anything any differently. What I have now, wisdom, is no match for youth. And I probably wouldn’t give it too much thought if it wasn’t for the dreams.

I definitely would not change the relationship I am currently in. By design, it is perfect.
I struggled through countless relationships to decide what works and what doesn’t to find out the kind of relationship I want to be in.
When I met my current partner, I immediately knew she was the one.
They say, you’ll know true love when you find it.

I am not sure as a teenager I knew very much about anything.
With benefit of thirty years hindsight perhaps!
As she sat there on the back of my friend’s moped, all those years ago, I was mesmerized.
And when my chance came?
Perhaps I wasn’t ready to “accept” love and felt I had to fight for it?

Or perhaps the lesson is more simple?
I think the answer is, I didn’t have the wisdom to take a stand for what I believed in.
I didn’t take responsibility for my feelings and fight for my right to be in love.

So you see, that is why I am grateful for that lesson and grateful for the dreams.
They remind me to love the people I love now and not wait thirty years to tell them I have loved them.
To stop and count my blessings, and to always do what is right for me!

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

I’m actually shocked!

The sadness is overcome when I realise the World I have stepped into is a World full of rising stars, not falling ones. So it seems appropriate to post a blog by my daughter Cloudia, a young woman with a rising talent as a writer, a woman you will be hearing more of in time.

I also express profound gratitude to my fellow rising stars, those who dared!

See you on the other side of the looking glass…

Rising souls, I give you Cloudia Tinley…

Dreaming

I look forward to going to bed at night. The dreams we have that are made up from our memories and then distorted.
So when people say dreams mean something, they do! They are everything that has happened to you during the day or during a period of time.
We have many dreams in our lifetime of course. Even if you can’t remember having them.
I’ve had dreams recently when people are trying to kill me. Now in real life nobody is trying to get me, but my subconscious mind may see it that way.
Your subconscious is a very powerful thing. When you are typing on a keyboard you aren’t thinking “Now hit w” you automatically do it.
That is your subconscious working.
Now I love having dreams because for me it is a bit of a relief from reality. I can forget what is real and instead see things that are impossible or seem impossible in the real world. It is so much fun!
I have found that by listening to certain music triggers certain dreams or thinking about something will influence your dreams.
For example: If I listen to Decode by Paramore, which is the music from the film Twilight, I may possibly dream of vampires.
We’ve all heard of nightmares. They are just the dreams that seem horrible to us. But it is just your subconscious making it that way.
I know they aren’t nice but there is no cure. You can not control your subconscious or how it perceives things.
I hear that cheese of all things can make dreams stronger or enhanced etc. I’m not sure if it is true, but I have tried it.
It may have enhanced or made my dream slightly more manic.
So give it a go.
But remember to brush your teeth after eating it before bed!

Cloudia Tinley <3

Gina is my true soulmate. You can read our story in my book http://thelogicofattraction.com

She is my bridge to the neuro-typical World, someone I can rely on to interpret facial expressions or tell me what is going on when I don’t understand.

I asked her to write something, because I feel she is as important as life itself, without her I would be a ship adrift in a vast ocean of chicken soup.

It seems odd introducing her, but here she is… Gina Ty-Wharton

Exploring our primal instincts.

I’m sitting on the train and I just spotted a poster with the headline
‘Twisted Killer stalks the rich and famous’. It was about a book
called ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’, a ‘shocking and disturbing read’
apparently, and I got to wondering why human beings choose to put such
scary and horrifying details into their consciousness via films and
books.
‘Horror’ films and books and those containing extreme violence are
popular and accepted forms of human entertainment. We don’t really
think twice about the latest graphic serial killer film or novel and
give even less thought to why we are drawn to them.
Is it to get a taste of the thrill we are supposed to have once
experienced whilst hunting down prey with our bare hands, the blood of
the kill, the knife edge of life or death back when we were all living
in caves? If so, why do will still need this? DO will still need to do
this? Are we actually perpetuating horror and violence by pursuing
this? And do we need to do this to be closer to god or are we actually
preventing our advancement?
Perhaps we are preventing our evolution to a higher state by choosing
to keep doing this?
If the human race stopped artificially pushing atrocities into its
consciousness, would the world slowly adjust and evolve to a higher
place? Is the violence and horror self perpetuating?
Personally I choose not to watch a film or read a book unless it is
something that will uplift or enlighten me. Maybe back in cave
dwelling days my genetic line can be traced back to the ones who sat
at the back of the cave and dreamed…

Gina can be found at http://gracefuloak.com

Todd Silva’s idea has been a complete revelation to me and I cannot stress enough how much fun it is.

My daughter gave me a puzzled look the other day and said “Dad, why do you keep leaving pound coins everywhere?”

If you want to know why read on…

Ladies and gentlemen, Todd Silva…

Do you know what the greatest gift is that you can give?

A couple of years ago, I began something that I call Give Away A Dollar A
Day. I had experienced some real hard lessons around money and finances,
and, what sprung out of all the “inner work” that I did to try and
understand what had happened, was the inspiration to begin this simple and
joyous practice. The discoveries that I made were that much of my life was
spent looking out for No. 1, with little time spent giving to others. In
short, I was a taker. Those hard lessons I mentioned were my wake up call.
And the inspiration to begin to give daily was how I was being gently guided
to turn this behavior around, and to start giving back.

Although I’ve given away a dollar every day for almost two years now, along
the way I’ve learned so much more about the many ways that I can give, that
you can give, that we can give – we can give thanks by expressing our
gratitude for all that we have right now, and we can be in service to
others. We can forgive – others, and just as importantly, ourselves. We can
give unconditionally which is without a doubt the most essential part of
giving. We can give time to be with our loved ones, and we can give them
love.

What I’ve come to learn is that the greatest gift that we can give, though,
is to give of who we really are. It’s to give back to others, to all of life
itself, the true essence of who you are, from your heart, from your very
core. “Follow your bliss”, as the late mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote. It
means – discover who you are and what you’re here to do, and then GIVE to
the world from that heart center within you.

I’m a sales engineering executive, and as such, spend much of my time at
work discussing business related issues with associates and clients. But my
most favorite thing to talk about is this idea of “Follow you bliss”. When
the time is right, and the conversation is open and ready for it, I like to
ask, “If you had no worries or concerns about money or time – in other
words, if you knew that the clock wasn’t going to run out on you anytime
soon, and that all of your bills were going to be paid – what would you
choose to do?” I love this question, because it almost always takes everyone
by surprise, and elicits a pretty healthy smile!

Do you give yourself time to dream about what you would do? Allow yourself
the time to fuel your dreams. And then begin to take the steps toward
realizing your dream now – even if it’s just baby steps.

Because when you are following your bliss, you are giving from the very
essence of who you are. And I truly believe that there is no greater reason
for your being here. And that there is no greater gift that you can give.

Blessings,

Todd Silva

PS – This is from The Power Of Myth with Bill Moyers, by Joseph Campbell,
page 113 – “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you
ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are – if you are
following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within
you, all the time.”