Effects Of Meditation On Dreaming?

[phoenix666]

I've been meditating consistently for two years now. Two weeks ago I committed to more meditation and I started doing more or less an hour a day (sometimes split in 3x20 minutes). I noticed that I now remember multiple dreams, whereas before I only remembered one dream per night (or even none). I also experience them more vividly and remember more details. 

Is there a connection between meditation and dreaming? Why is that so, does anyone have an explanation? did anyone experience the same change? 

[Capethaz]

Yes, because you become more conscious of your all your experience including dreaming.

[RossE]

Oh yup. Last week I meditated for 25 hours and man my dreams the last couple of nights have been crazy! They are generally quite crazy due to my habit I think anyways.

I've not done any research but my little idea is that it's digging up a lot of unconscious shit, especially memories. Your dreams are a reflection of this process. My reason for this belief is that A LOT of old stuff comes up in my dreams - people I used to be close with, old girlfriends, old activities, etc. We should get together and do a research project

[AstralProjection]

16 hours ago, phoenix666 said:

I've been meditating consistently for two years now. Two weeks ago I committed to more meditation and I started doing more or less an hour a day (sometimes split in 3x20 minutes). I noticed that I now remember multiple dreams, whereas before I only remembered one dream per night (or even none). I also experience them more vividly and remember more details. 

Is there a connection between meditation and dreaming? Why is that so, does anyone have an explanation? did anyone experience the same change? 

I notice that when I do heart meditation that I get some emotional type dreams, and I dream more often. I would imagine that certain parts of the brain become more activated when you meditate. It's like when I started practicing astral projection I would imagine and try to feel my spiritual body falling out of my physical body and then I started dreaming that. Like I had a dream that I feel backward out of a window. It was like my subconscious knew that this was so counter intuitive but it did it away because it knew this is what I wanted. The goal is to do it enough that you actually astral project during your dream.

If you take psychedelics that too will increase your dreams and your dream lucidity over time.

[phoenix666]

@RossE so it seems I'm not the only one. 25 hours? that's a lot, I'm planning a retreat this summer, hopefully I can do some very deep meditation work there.

That's what I was thinking as well. Leo said in one of his videos that meditation is like psychotherapy - working through stuff of your past. the difference is, that in psychotherapy it happens on a conscious and during meditation on an unconscious way. I also noticed a lot of stuff attached to my past in my last dreams: my ex, a best friend I had in junior-high... a lot of things which where very important and present at one point in my life and I hadn't been thinking about that stuff for such a long time. so it caught me by surprise to suddenly see them in my dreams.

that could be interesting

[phoenix666]

@AstralProjection did you already manage to astro-project? I've tried it for a couple of weeks last summer..no chance. But it's something I definitively want to experience at some point

that's great, I'm looking forward to even more intense dreams with meditation and psychedelics. I've been trying to lucid dream for a long time...I still haven't managed that. But this time I will be more patient. my plan is to first work on lucid dreaming. and if that works out I can go on with trying astral projection. baby steps.

for now I'll just enjoy my vivid dreams and I'll hopefully manage to become lucid soon.

[AstralProjection]

44 minutes ago, phoenix666 said:

@AstralProjection did you already manage to astro-project? I've tried it for a couple of weeks last summer..no chance. But it's something I definitively want to experience at some point

that's great, I'm looking forward to even more intense dreams with meditation and psychedelics. I've been trying to lucid dream for a long time...I still haven't managed that. But this time I will be more patient. my plan is to first work on lucid dreaming. and if that works out I can go on with trying astral projection. baby steps.

for now I'll just enjoy my vivid dreams and I'll hopefully manage to become lucid soon.

@phoenix666 I only have a few astral projections under my belt. I put my username as astral projection to draw attention to this very interesting and effective path of going inward. And it seems to be helping draw attention to it. In fact I think astral projection is many regards is better of a path going inward than meditation alone. I stopped trying to astral project some years ago because my health was so bad I couldn't even do the wake back to bed method without ruining my sleep. Then I got better and was busy with college but now that I have some real time on my hands I am getting back into not only astral projection but meditation and psychedelics.

Edited June 13, 2017 by AstralProjection

[phoenix666]

@AstralProjection I got interested in lucid dreaming and astral projection through Koi Fresco. I believe that it can be an extremely good tool for going inward too. Dreams and the stuff you see whilst astro projecting is pretty much a projection of you own mind. So it's perfect for looking into your own subconscious. I'm looking forward to learning more about all of that.

yeah, being busy with college and college interfering with inner work...I know that! happens to me all the time.. we'll have to be patient. 

let us know about your progress on astral projection  good luck with it!

[RossE]

@phoenix666 It is a lot but man, the effects are phenomenal. A big week of meditation boosts your practice so much! On a retreat you should be looking to do at least 50 hours in a week. It's the perfect setting for it 

That's very cool, it seems like we've both had very similar experiences with dreams! Stuff from the past comes up during meditation too, particularly during Do Nothing. I don't take the thoughts or dream seriously, and it makes me happy to know that it might be that shit getting worked through. 

PS: Shinzen Young talks about the taste of purification that meditation gives you from working through the past in many of his sources. A quick Google is good

Edited June 14, 2017 by RossE

[phoenix666]

@RossE I'm looking forward to some serious meditation

Yes, it also happens during meditation. Random thoughts about stuff I thought I had forgotten long time ago come up. It probably means it's working, whatever 'it' is.   

[AstralProjection]

@phoenix666  Yeah I'll keep you updated. And I recently subscribed to Koi Fresco. He's a cool cat.

[Delinkaaaa]

I would like to add something to what you guys are discussing here.

Yes, meditation and dreaming has its connection, but the connection is nondirect. Meditation changes the way you are dreaming as you are changing your awareness. Than the awareness affecs the dreaming process.

From my own experiences I can say that there are sharply changing periods when I can remember all of my dreams and write them down in 1000 words, replaced by periods when I don't remeber anything at all. And so does the lucid dreamind. Once I have lucid dream every night, but week after I don't have any for a month. 

The changes are always caused by my meditation progress. The meditation change what you can expect from your dreams, so you cannot use the same orientation tools to distinguish between dream and reality.

I have just recently found a solution. I founded a dream diary. When I notice that I no longer remember my dreams, I read my dream diary over and over again, until I am sure that I do know what to expect from my dreams.

I thing that writing a dream diary is a best way towards lucid dreaming. You should definetly try it out.

I also recomend you a book written by the first lucid dream scientist - Stephen LaBerge. The book is called Lucid dreaming. 

[RossE]

@Delinkaaaa Thanks for the info. I've been quite hesitant to try lucid dreaming, what effects has it had on your life?

[phoenix666]

@Delinkaaaa so the more I raise my awareness with meditation, the easier it will be to become aware of the dreaming state and become lucid? 

yes, I've been writing a dream diary for the last 3 months in order to learn lucid dreaming, but no such luck yet.

thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out

[Delinkaaaa]

@RossE Well  

The biggest think is to recognize how you fell the reality. I started to see my day as dream which is not created in my mind, whereas I started to see my dreams as reality created by my mind. So the biggest think for me is discovery of the tiny difference between dream and reality.

And ofcourse - lucid dreaming could be a great deal of fun and toll to learn about yoursefl. Some of the dreams gaved me big lesson about myself.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Delinkaaaa

[phoenix666]

@RossE Koi seems to be quite pleased by it

 

[Delinkaaaa]

30 minutes ago, phoenix666 said:

@Delinkaaaa so the more I raise my awareness with meditation, the easier it will be to become aware of the dreaming state and become lucid? 

Well  Not so much I would say. 

Yes, raising of awarenes  will help you to easily recognize what is dream and what is not, but  then what usually happen is that your dreams will get completly different dinamics and different shape, so you will be at the beguning again. 

Atleast, that is my case. 

[phoenix666]

@Delinkaaaa I actually became lucid once: but I wouldn't describe it as lucid dreaming, since I woke up like 3-5 seconds after I realized that I was dreaming. I became aware of my dreaming state because I was not at my current place, but at my old one. So suddenly I felt like 'wtf, didn't I move away from here 9 months ago?? oh fuck, I'm dreaming'. then I wanted to explore my dreaming-world.....got excited...my pulse accelerated and I woke up. this happened some months ago. But it was exactly as you said, I recognized that the place I was at. couldn't be reality. 

I will go on with my meditation and the dream diary. Let's hope for some LD soon

[Delinkaaaa]

@phoenix666 You said that you woked up after having lucid dream. Be carefull of that. Lucid dreams usualy cause people to awoke from the dream. In the consequence, once someone gets used to have lucid dreams, he could get used to be woken up by them. Than what happen is that you assume that you will be woken up. And once you assume this, you usualy start woking up into the dream. And when you woke up into the dream, you could lose your lucidity, because you just think that you are not in the dream nolonger. 

It is good to get known that from lucidity you usualy woke up to next dream.

So once you woke up, you can continue dreaming, because you are probabli styl in the dream.

This is happening because in the dream usualy happens everythink that you assume. If you assume to woke up, you will be dreaming about waking up.