As you read this, you are dreaming (so hopefully you've had your coffee or tea, if that's your ritual). When you woke up this morning, you transitioned from one dream state to another. When your physical body dies, you will transition to yet another dream state. And then maybe emerge into a different one altogether.
The human brain has a difficult time understanding these truths, both because most of us habitually think in "words," which are too limiting to ever accurately describe them, and because the sensory input it receives from the waking dream state we call "physical reality" is so convincing. (Check out the movie "Perfect Sense" for an interesting -- if somewhat dark -- exploration of this idea.)
The world feels "solid," and the bodies we wake up into every day appear to be somewhat consistent, and it is usually the case that the people and things we interacted with yesterday reappear in our lives today, so our reality feels more or less dependable. Furthermore, unless and until we discover that we can be lucid in this dream reality, its "rules of engagement" appear stable, if sometimes arbitrary and baffling.
That's why it can feel like life happens "to" us and not "as" or "for" us. Why does tragedy befall some people and not others? What determines who gets lucky in love or career or anything else? For most of us, the brain -- not knowing that these are simply aspects of the dream world that it is, itself, creating -- will spend most of its existence deconstructing, mapping, comparing and trying to understand the "rules" of its own world. It does this so that it can feel safe, enjoy experiences and pursue happiness. We are always strategizing, trying to get to a place that feels more "comfortable." And the ego, which is also a creation of the brain, adds its own demands: not only does it want to feel safe, it would like to compare itself favorably to all the other egos out there. It likes triumph, certainty, invulnerability.
These are all thoughtforms, of course, which means we can work with them.
But back to the dream. Some people, myself included, experience lucid dreams, in which we become conscious of the fact that we are dreaming. Becoming lucid in a dream, if you've never experienced it, is a fascinating thing. Not only does the dream world feel completely different from our usual reality (mine is exceptionally vivid, and I notice that I don't have much of a "body" below the torso), but there are essentially no rules. You can direct the action, change the laws of physics, and more. I have flown through walls and people, astrally projected, and interacted romantically with more than one celebrity (that last one is tricky, because if what you experience in the lucid dream triggers a reaction in your sleeping physical body, it tends to wake that body up, ending the dream).
To awaken in this dream of physical reality is much the same. For some, becoming lucid in 3D is a gradual, relatively gentle process that arises out of practices such as meditation. For others, that lucidity is spontaneous and abrupt -- for whatever reason, our perception suddenly shifts, and we observe that what we thought was real was, in fact, an illusion. A dream. (It's a dream we're all having collectively, but a dream nonetheless.) And just as when we become lucid in a dream experienced while our physical body is asleep, we start to understand that the "rules" of our 3D reality are somewhat arbitrary, and can be bent. What changed? Simply our perception.
(Disclaimer: The process of Awakening spiritually can be very psychologically challenging, so it's essential to have the support of others who have been through it. You'll probably know if this applies to you.)
Working with thoughtforms doesn't mean you can snap your fingers and manifest, say, a pile of money out of thin air (although if you do, by all means let me know!). It does mean that you will start to perceive your life from a completely new perspective, and see the many ways by which you already interact with the energetic flow of the universe to co-create your experience of it. It is mainly a process of alignment. You will start to better understand exactly what you want and why you want it, and then the artful manifestation of those experiences into your life will begin to flow quite naturally out of your new perception.
Complete course available for download here. Happy manifesting!