A Lucid Dream...

[FirstglimpseOMG]

I was watching Rupert Spira the other day & he simply said "Perception IS reality."

I'd like to share a vivid dream I had a few years back, and never forgot.

*I find myself in a dimly lit basement. Low ceilings, smaller, unfinished, old. Damp 8×8 wooden beams make up the wall & ceiling frames, damp brick walls between the wall beams. Cement floor, but foot wide paths of wood beams are laid on this floor from room to room, high enough to walk on and not step in the 4 inches of water that is everywhere....*

Not sure why I was having damp, old basement dreams, I might have been apartment hunting at the time, on a low budjet lol. Here's the best part though...

*While walking along one of these beams, I became suddenly and distinctly aware that I was dreaming. Very cool! So I decide the perfect thing to do was to dip my bare toe into the water and see wht it felt like.

Honestly, honestly, that was the coldest, wettest water I had ever dipped a toe in! I'll never forget it.*

That has implications that are.. yup, unbelieveable.

[Dodo]

You should try sex, it also feels completely real  . And you know it will be better than real life, because it's a dream!!

Edited January 29, 2017 by Dodoster

[FirstglimpseOMG]

I'll have to work on that. I can't remember having a good sex dream lately. Not while asleep anyway haa.

I'm pretty fascinated and excited by the idea of realizing awareness during deep sleep. Apparently you can work up (wake up?) to awareness where there was seemingly no awareness before during the depths of dreamless sleep. Apparently awareness NEVER SLEEPS! 

[Visionary]

Try flying dude! Crazy shit.

When i'm aware i'm dreaming, i get waaaay too excited everytime so i'll be awake in no time. But once it lasted just long enough to fly. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

[cetus]

3 hours ago, Dodoster said:

You should try sex, it also feels completely real  . And you know it will be better than real life, because it's a dream!!

Did you ever have the lucid dream of being stripped and tied to a post while beautiful woman throw mini marshmallows at you? Maybe that's just me.

 

[PureExp]

5 hours ago, FirstglimpseOMG said:

That has implications that are.. yup, unbelieveable.

Yes

You will never see the so called "real" world the same old way again. Be careful, it may fade into a dream lol.

[FirstglimpseOMG]

@PureExp I'm only just beginning to grasp the reality that becoming fully lucid during THIS dream, and learning (re-learning?) that with full awareness and realization of my true nature, this shared dream is a play that exists to be not only experienced from a place of pure peace, love and bliss of existence, but is also fully shape-able. I never knew I had the power (I, ha ha).

Everything gets slowly better and better. The world slowly becomes more alive & 3D & high def. Each interaction with another human, each one becomes an opportunity to love and appreciate and share.

I think I'm actually growing a fair bit in the last year, it's pretty crazy for this guy who thought he was something else!

@cetus56 Mini marshmallows! How many beautiful women!? Oh ...it's up to me? There's a music video in there somewhere... and something else for the bucket list!

[Guivs]

@FirstglimpseOMG

Try meditating in your next lucid dream, and tell me what happens  

Or ask "who am I'", you should get some interesting insights  

Do you have a method for having lucid dreams consistently ?

If not, I could share a thing or two, if you so wish.

[Wouter]

@Guivs I wish

 

[Guivs]

@wouters ok

Preparation for a lucid dream is to be done throughout the day and most importantly right before going to sleep.

Usually, if you are dilligent in your practice, lucid dreams should arise after +/- two weeks of serious commitment. 

Keys in practice : 

1) During the day : make frequent reality check throughout  the day. "Am I dreaming ?" (Check if gravity is working by jumping, for instance.)  

Also, wonder if there is anything wrong going on. Am I in a familiar place ? Is the sky how it is supposed to be ? ... 

 With this, you'll be more likely to be checking this in a dream at night also, and you'll become lucid right there!

2) The more mindful you are during the day, the more you'll be able to have clearer dreams with more details. It is an important first step as well and useful regardless of wether you'd like to lucid dream. When we continually bring awareness to each moment of experience, this skill wil also be arising in dream because we loosen the grip of reactivity.

Concretely : try to be mindful and have a formal sitting practice where you concentrate on one object of your choice (breath, image, sound,...) once or twice a day minimum.

3) See everything around you as illusions during the day.  Tell yourself "This is like a dream" and see yourself as an illusion as well. Recognize that whatever manifests is one’s selfmanifestation, with no reference point, no existence, no foundation, and no identity. Training in a onepointed way, one becomes familiar with this practice, and whatever phenomena appear concretely are only illusions, dreams arising in oneself.

Concretely : upon waking, think "I am awake in a dream. When you enter the living room, recognize it as a dream kitchen. Then pour dream water to male dream coffee. Think that this is a dream and be reminded of it CONTINUOUSLY throughout the day. It's sometimes important to make the emphasis on you, "the dreamer" , than the objects of your experience. Keep reminding yourself that you are dreaming every one of your experiences, emotions, anger, tiredness, sleepiness, happiness. It is all dream. The truth of this statement will increase as you investigate those feelings, that are in fact just a complex association of thoughts, images, sensations that you dream up.The car you drive, the house you live in, are all transient and your mind's projections.They are not solid, but more like a rainbow. If you keep recognizing it, grasping will diminish and everything will remind you of the dream-like nature of all phenomena including yourself. Eventually, this will lead to recognition of the dream state as well.

4) Before going to sleep, take time to relax, meditate and set the strong intention : "I am going to sleep, and I'm going to have dreams. This is for certain. I will also recognize those dreams as what they are : dreams. Repeat it and develop conviction. This is like when you are setting the intention before sleep to wake up at a particular hour, it usually works somewhat.

Concretely : At the end of the day, review your day and have the strong intention to practice at night. Allow memories from the day to come up and recognize that everythin was like a dream. Experience those memories as memories of dreams. Have the strong intention to recognize dreams at night, and to know it right away. Feel this intention fully! like a vow!

5) When you wake up in the morning, begin by recollecting : "did you dream?" Were you aware of it ? "  Write down or/and recollect your dreams as soon as you wake up, it will help in remembering them.

if you did dream, but were not aware of it, say to yourself that you dreamt but did not recognize it as such. Resolve that next time, you will do so.

If you did have a lucid dream, feel joy and develop the attitude to keep having it in the future. Rejoice.

Generate the intention to remain consistent in the practice throughout the day ahead.

 

In summary :

-Reality checks throughout the day (am I dreaming? Am I in a familiar place ?)

-Develop awareness consistently throughout the day

-Recognize all phenomena as dreams, and yourself as well. (+emotions, thoughts,...)

-Set strong intention to be lucid before going to sleep, review your day

-Review your sleep and generate intention to practice throughout the day

 

Practice it for a few weeks with dilligence, and you might have your first lucid dream!

Then, if you do have it, the next step will be to know what to do in it  And maybe the next step will be to gradually learn how to fall asleep consciously.  Much more could be said about lucid dreaming and dream yoga in general.

 

If you become really interested, some books I'd recommend :

- Dreaming yourself awake (Alan Wallace)

-Tibetan yogas of dream and Sleep (Tenzin Wangyal)

 

My advice on this topic come mainly from these two teachers

 

 

 

 

 

[FirstglimpseOMG]

I have never tried to have lucid dreams, only experiencing them sporadically. It makes sense that the more aware you are during the 'waking dream', the more likely that awareness will persist more and more during the 'sleeping dream'. I'm more interested lately in how to realize more and more awareness during deep sleep, where there are no dreams, only empty awareness. 

Rupert Spira was saying that we can fall asleep and have a dream. In this dream, the dreamed central character can fall asleep as well and have a dream, and that dreamed character can subsequently fall asleep and begin to dream. ..And so on & so on. 

The awareness never sleeps thing is different though, and pretty elusive apparently, I'm still rather confused about a lot of this stuff.

[Guivs]

@FirstglimpseOMG

Hi ! 

It is much more difficult to have awareness during dreamless sleep, but it is nonetheless possible. Usually,a "sleep yogi" will first develop his skills in lucid dreaming before he can try to be aware in deep sleep. One of the ways to catch a glimpse of this awareness in dreamless sleep is to fall asleep consciously. In order to do that, one can focus on a small, white, luminous light ball or symbol at either the space between eyebrows or at the center of your chest. Then, relax and keep that awareness of the light as you gradually fall asleep.

But if you do want to develop that ability, I'd advise you to first start to focus on lucid dreaming as it is more accessible and will help you in developping awareness in deep sleep as well  : )

Also, there are a series of practices that you can do while having lucid dreams....

[Guivs]

@brovakhiin A great tool indeed ! 

Yes it seems contradictory to have RC and seeing everything as a dream. But I would say that even though the waking state and dream state are dream-like, the waking state still has a series of rules (gravity,..) that seem to apply while those rules do not necessarily occur while dreaming. 

My opinion is also that dreams truly are an indication of your real accomplishments, and falling asleep is like a mini-death. If you are still ignorant,you still do not recognize dreams as they are and you will not recognize that "you died", if I may so put it. So yes, a great practice l! Imagine being able to practice all night because you are lucid throughout: 1/3 of your life!

It might be harsh, but I think that if one still has non lucid dreams and non lucid sleep, he is not enlightened yet, which makes it more difficult to obtain than one would think. 

Of course, if one does practice dilligently throughout the day with no special dream yoga, one will eventually develop lucidity in sleep as well, I think

[Dodo]

I had a dream experience from last night I'd like to share. I keep getting those weirdly profound dreams without being lucid in them.

Dream was pretty long, but at some point i was with a group of friends, whom i know from real life, from early in my childhood. I had a big fat joint I wanted to light up, so we found a hidden place in some public garage. 

So i lit it up, but they started laughing at me as if i don't know how to smoke. So then I wanted to show them im actually prettt experienced and I puffed in really deeply and held my breath. I was feeling the ceiling touching my head.

 It was such a deep breath that I actually woke up in real life having taken a deep breath in reality too. I felt my head was touching the pillow, i guess that was the ceiling feeling  I had a nice laugh.

Then I wanted to go into the same dream and tell them that I literally had an awakening experience from the weed ?

So I got back to sleep and the next dream I remember, i was in my room where I slept and talking to some guy who was a 5meodmt user and he was telling me how i should not be using weed etc. I got rly angry cause i felt he was judging me and was all like: well you use drugs too, why is my drug bad nd your drug good and things like that.

I was talking about how it is good for the third eye and stuff like that idk. I thought these dreams were really cool. 

I really don't know how I didnt realise i was dreaming at least that second dream

Ps: the fat joint cost me 2 cents. I just love dreams ?

Edited February 2, 2017 by Dodoster