Wow! What a great
meeting last time!
This is a difficult summery to do because during this last
meeting we covered so much and often went off subject, although our discussion was
not quite ‘off subject’ but more ‘jumping ahead’ of ourselves. The discussion tended to lean towards the
purpose of Dreaming – being, the
control of the energy body or ‘mindfulness.’
As far as where we were with our Dreaming
practices most of us tended to be at the first gate – working on Lucid
dreaming. A couple were already knee
deep into Lucid dreaming and were working towards Astral Projection or just
generally wondering where to go from there.
Below are some of the tips and suggestions that others had for getting
past the first gate of Dreaming: recognize that you are dreaming or being aware
of falling asleep.
-
While you are falling asleep (or trying to :-/)
start to day-dream. This will help to
facilitate the transition from waking to conscious dreaming. Another variation of this is to visualize a
place you want to visit or something you want to find in your dreams such as
your hands. Alternately, focus your
attention on bodily sensations as you are falling asleep, such as your breath
or the sounds in the room. When you
become aware that you are no longer in conscious control of your breath or can
no longer actively hear, then you must be asleep.
-
Be aware
of your thoughts in waking life. Eckhart
Tolle was mentioned here. The book The
Power of Now came highly recommended.
Also, New Earth which I found free online in the public domain
here: http://archive.org/details/EckhartTolleANewEarth
. The idea behind this is: when you are mindful of your thoughts and can “listen
to the silence” in waking life then you will have more success in controlling your
thoughts during dreaming. You will have
more awareness of the unconscious thoughts streaming through your sleeping
brain. I also mentioned the audio book
by James Allen: “The Mastery of Destiny” http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/the-mastery-of-destiny-by-james-allen
as a way to start a daily practice of thought discipline.
-
An important concept was brought up concerning
adjusting your life to embrace your dreaming practice. Basically what you put in is what you get
out, you reap what you sow, and it takes will and energy to have will and energy
(like it takes money to make money).
Having a daily/ nightly ritual that you perform to keep your mind and awareness
on dreaming will help you to achieve your dreaming goals. Remember it takes 21 days to establish a new
habit ;)
-
Tying into the tip above is the daily/ nightly
practice of journaling. When you write
down your dreams everyday it keeps your consciousness on your dreaming and
helps you to discern dreaming from waking reality. You will begin to notice similarities
associated with each state and therefore be able to recognize when you are
dreaming. The most important thing to
keep in mind with journaling is to do it IMMEDIATELY upon waking, even if it’s
just jotting down several key phrases that will help you to recall the full
dream later when you are more awake.
-
Several more little tips were: have an app or watch chime throughout the day
that will remind you to look at your hands or ask yourself if you are
dreaming. Have this chime on during the
night so that it will hopefully break through to your subconscious mind while
sleeping. Use a NOVA dreamer or programmable
mask that flashes light during REM sleep to let your conscious mind know you
are dreaming. A version of this mask is
available online here: http://store.sleepwithremee.com/ and information about the NOVAdreamer can be
found on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahotzaPdGR0
. In addition, here is a Lucid dreaming
experiment provided by the Lucidity Institute:
http://lucidity.com/nosex2.pdf
Robert
Bruce
Teach
Yourself to Dream: A Practical Guide to Unleashing the Power of the
Subconscious Mind by David
Fontana and David, Ph.D. Fontana
“He was of the opinion that self-importance is not
only the sorcerers’ supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind. Most of our energy goes into upholding our importance…
in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about whether or not
we are admired or liked or acknowledged.
If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary
things would happen to us. One, we would
free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and,
two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second
attention to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.” The Art of Dreaming by Carolos
Castaneda.
The
subject of ‘ego’ or self-importance came up several times during this meeting,
so we have decided to broach this vast subject the next couple meetings. Please feel free to add anything I might have
forgotten to the comments section or as a reply. Thank you for making this meetup group a
successful one!
