Have the ability to control dreams but chooses not too???

Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
2

Wow,

If you really have so many LD’s I would learn to use them to develop your mind more, if I was you.

Why would you like to have a normal dream? A dream is your subconscious playing with you. It’s true, if you can’t get lucid in a dream, you can learn a lot about yourself by analysing your dreams, you can try to figure out what your subconscious is trying to do, and if you get on the right track some unconcious things can become conscious (that is good for your development).

But in LD you are conscious in your subconscious world, so there is no need to analyse, you can just ask your subconscious what it is doing, you can do this by talking to dream characters and even to trees, lakes, houses, name it. You can just ask: hey, why are you in my dream, what do you have to teach me, …

This is much more direct, you can only do this in LD, meaning you know you are dreaming and you are in control, so yes, if that’s what you experience, it is LD.

Anyhow, I don’t understand your problem, why do you want to be be a zombie in your dream and let the dream control you, while you can control the dream? If you get kind of bored, just let the dream surprise you, that is still possible, even if you are Lucid. Just find a door, open it and let your dream suprise you, let it make a world to explore, there is so much to explore in dreams, your mind is endless you know.

And beside exploring, there is so much more to do in a LD. If you have interest in spiritual development, I hope you do, because with your ability you have the holy grail for this, you could use your LD’s to develop your mind spiritually. Read some books about dream yoga in Tibetan Buddhism for example, they state that wathever you do to evolve spiritually has 10 to 1000 times more effect when you can do this in a dream, because in a dream you are pure mind, the limitations that your body gives you are gone, so you are there with your mind alone, that is very powerful.
It gets even more powerful if you try to stay conscious while in deep sleep (without dreams), it is said that you can enter this state by just closing your dream eyes in the dream and stay focused on your awareness, if you can succeed in this, you should slowly get familiar with the clear light of your mind. Because I have so few LD’s I almost never try this, because there is a bigger chance of waking up, and then the lucid experience stops, but if you really have so many LD’s it doesn’t matter, some minutes Lucid experience more or less is no issue for you, so maybe you should try this. Anyhow you seem like bored with the “normal” lucid dreams, so try to get even further then that. Something new, exciting, … Go for it and don’t be ridiculous wanting to have normal dreams, that’s like wanting to have dirt in your hands while you have gold in them.

I hope this helps in some way, If not, excuse me.

3

Hi,

Thank you very much for your reply. I will look into dream yoga cause it sounds very interesting. I enjoy dreaming and I do not get bored with lucid dreaming but I do like to experience new things. You see lucid dreaming and controlling dreams to me is normal and so I adopted this experiment to see if I could experience a non-lucid dream cause to me that is different and I want to experience just something different whilst dreaming. Lucid dreaming has been extremely beneficial over the years… I have used it as a method of study whilst completing my degree, I have met people and experienced things I would never do in life which is great and there really is no limitation to what you can do. What you said is very true and I am definitely going to research it some more.

Thank you

4

As would Alan Watts say: Life is just a dream! - Click!

5

Hello Laniburger!

You and I are very much alike, and in the same mindset. There aren’t many like this, but typically those who experience this feel the same way. I’ve lived my entire life in Lucidity, and up until a few years ago, I believed Lucid dreaming was a completely common and normal thing in dreams. I believed that is just the way dreams worked. I am similar to you in the sense that I enjoy Normal dreams more so than Lucid ones.

↓ ↓ ↓

This is only one of a few reasons.

  1. I’ve found that my ND’s are not similar to other individuals in a sense that rarely have they ever consisted of typical everyday life. My dreams tend to be rather adventurious, and story-like, like you’d read in a fantasy/psi-fi novel.

When I become lucid, the dream seems to surrender it’s flow, and gives me full control. Turning into a sandbox rather than an adventure. I think this is true for a lot of people (not everyone, and possibly fewer than most). DC’s become mundane; events no longer take place.

  1. I’ve noticed a lot of people on this site enjoy Lucid Dreams for thrilling things, such as combat. The issue I have, is that I’ve always essentially been a god of my dreams. The only thing I’ve not managed to be able to do on a whim is conjure up DC’s out of thin air. I can still summon them, in a sense of bringing them into the dream, but I still have to search for them for a moment. They just don’t materialize infront of me. Other than that, no resistance in anything. It lacks thrill, excitement, consideration, and other things that could make you be more involved and serious about the situation.

It’s not easy to frighten me. In fact, in my non ND’s, it is impossible. Hostile forces? Nightmare creatures? Even other gods, my instinct seems to be a disintegration bolt. There’s just no thrill in anything anymore. No fear, no danger, no surprises, no nothing. I feel no reason to be involved, and overall it seems rather pointless in that sense.

This is why it is absolutely understandable that you feel this way. But when you have had something throughout your entire life, regardless of what it is, it can become very colorless, whilst the things that are rare to you become interesting and exciting, regardless of what that may be.

Similar to what I said above. Have you ever heard fairy tales where the rich, such as a princess runs away to live a normal life? Pretending not to be a glorious figure? That is a perfect example :content:

But aside from all that, Laniburger, the suggestions proposed are absolutely marvelous ones. There is so much more to do in lucid dreams other than simply flying, or turning the world upside down. Focus more on the meanings, interpretations, and secrets behind your dreams.

That is a better alternative than what I have resorted to. I’ve learned to suppress my lucidity, and just let go of it. But even at that time, the lucid abilities remained. Granted, even though they did remain, I didn’t keep in mind that it was a dream, so the involvement and consideration of the situations was quite more solid and enjoyable.

It was a long term goal to eliminate that, and it seems that I’ve succeeded in doing so. Falling from the position of a god to a lowly mortal. Unfortunately, so has my dream world become very mundane itself. I have not had any adventures or excitement since, which is what I am currently trying to remedy.

Regardless, as having a similar outlook as you, feel free to interact with me as you please.

And welcome to LD4all :content:

6

Hi,
Yes I am looking into the suggestions mentioned cause I have not explored them all. But I am really interested in what you are saying. I honestly haven’t met many people who experience close to what I do and it is very difficult to get some new ideas opinions/experiences when they are all trying to achieve what I seem to be able to do all the time. You explained exactly how I feel. I think some people may misunderstand what I am saying too - cause I am not unhappy that I can lucid dream or control them in fact like I have said it can come in very handy. But sometime I want to experience what I call a little movie in my head that I can be part of which I don’t actively have to control or manipulate or create. And when you lucid dream for as long as we have - you want to have adventures or movies in dreams again. I am still not able to have these experiences all the time so when I do my dreams are still very movie/adventure like. Which I really enjoy at the moment. My dreams are always lucid because I am always aware I am dreaming - I started having lucid dreams when I was a child to avoid horrible nightmares, then I started controlling dreams as a way to confront and control my nightmares. Since then I have always had the ability to control my dreams and always know I am dreaming. For some reason when I start dreaming my mind somehow remembers I just put myself to sleep so this therefore is dreaming. I like you until recently thought everyones dreams were like mine and everyone could do the same thing - so when I started doing more research and realising that wasn’t the case I became very intrigued and wanted to learn more. So here I am lol.

7

Time for introductions!

Don’t worry yourself about this :smile:. Ignorance is 100% tolerated here, as long as you are not arrogantly correcting or making claims about the theories and suggestions people voice. Everyone integrated here is kind and willing to help, so do not be afraid to ask a question. Keep an open mind, listen, and show that you’re here to learn and assist in aiding, not to preach or disrespectfully correct people, and you’ll be family. This forum is highly moderated and has no tolerance for flaming/trolling, which means you won’t find anyone doing that here without it being taken care of as soon as possible. If you do come across it, please contact a mod about it before doing anything else. Stop your interaction with them completely.

There are sometimes heated debates that go on though, and there can be strong opposition, but as long as direct attacks aren’t involved, keeping an open mind should ease through that.

We aren’t critical about any lack of knowledge. If you don’t know terminology, or anything, for that matter, no one is going to get after you for it. Others will be informative and give resources as suggestions if you do happen to make a mistake about it, but no one will respond negatively.

If you havn’t already, make sure to stop by The Rules page and get to know them. Ld4all does the best they can to keep this site clean and safe for everyone.

There are also - as mentioned above, many different guides and resources to look through if you’re interested, or even curious.

We hope you enjoy your time here, and whether or not your visit was only intended to be temporary, or a simple question, we really hope you’ll stay! If nothing else, this is a great community regardless.

Absolutely!
One of the wide contraversies is the definition of FLD, (False Lucid Dream. Oh! And the forum is set up so you can hover over an acronym, and it should give you a short definition)

I, from personal experience have always maintained power and control even when not lucid. This isn’t always the case, but more often than not. But to be truly definitive, if you consciously recognize that you are in a dream, you are lucid. If you don’t have that, then you aren’t. Regardless of what ever control you maintain.

–

I wouldn’t put aside what dreamystivi has suggested, as they could prove not only enjoyable, but quite constructive. But I’m a creative, and one thing in particular, I enjoy creating my own fictional characters.

One thing that I always found interesting and enjoyable is to call out these fictional characters that I’ve created myself in waking life. It’s fascinating to interact with them in many ways. Ask them questions, about themselves; where they come from; their history, anything you’d like to ask them, or do with them. Even if you know - as their creator - what those answers are, sometimes you’ll be surprised and intrigued by their answers and responses.

These characters to me have always felt somehow more real than other DC’s. I’ve gone so far as to believe they truly exist. That they have their own mind, and personality. Now, from what we know - or at least understand, this isn’t true. But that is something that is still widely under controversy. We still just do not know.

Regardless, for me it has always been an alternative to being bored with idea of what to do.

As for “calling them out”, it is just that. I’ve not truly spent much time directly trying to materialize them, because I found that an easy way, is to just go around looking for them. Call out to them, ask DC’s about them. They typically appear somewhere close, and it doesn’t take long for me to locate them. Of course, that is personal ability, but you may want to try it yourself.

I’m not particularly sure about what you’ve done in the past, but this is one thing that I enjoy doing.

8

Laniburger, Lumessence,

Please accept my apologies. I wrote this mail partly to help (because I know, from reading and from studying and practising buddhism) what are the real powers of lucid dreaming (apart from just flying around and exploring), but I must admit partly also out of frustration. It is frustrating that we, ordinary people, have to do so much effort to get Lucid and then if it happens have no time enough to do all the things we would like to do in that Lucid dream. I admit, I am jealous, but not only jealous, also very excited and very happy there are people like you two.

I had a feeling that my motivation could be wrong, thats why I wrote:
“I hope this helps in some way, If not, excuse me.”. So please excuse me.

Anyhow, it is very interesting reading what you two write, thanks to share this.
I understand now that it is indeed difficult to comprehend, when you have a totally diffrent experience. But with your explenation Lumessence, I understand now that the trill gets out of it, when LD is getting naturally, and even that you begin to want normal dreams, that take you away in adventures…

But I still have some questions, If you don’t mind, I understand if you do, I acted rather arrogantly.

What I don’t understand is that dreams loose their adventurous character when you become lucid. You can still have dreamplay, no? When I become lucid, true, everything seems to stop, not the surroundings but especially other DC’s, but then when I start to react again with the dreamscene, the dream just responds and the dream keeps surprising me, maybe because I expect it that way. Maybe it is worth a try, just develop the mindset that the dream keeps surprising you, look behind doors, behind walls, expect to find adventure there, new people, new scenery, new situations, wouldn’t that work?

And some questions I really am interested in for myself:
Did you ever try to meditate in a dream? Did it work?
Did your ever try to consciously enter the non-dream state? If not, would you please try it and tell me something about it. I am so fascinated by this. You know, it takes years and years or even a lifetime to be able to experience the clear light by means of normal meditation, but while Lucid in a dream you can experience this much more easily.
Did you ever try to meet another person that is dreaming at the same time, to enter his/her dream?
Studying in your dreams, how does this work? Could you please tell something more about it Laniburger?

So many questions, and much more, but I will stop here for now and see if you two like to get into this or not. If not, please excuse me.

9

@dB_FTS

Alan Watts brings together western lucid dreaming and buddhist dream and sleep yoga, in his book about lucid dreaming. It is him who describes you can enter the clear light from a lucid dream. Great man. Good book.

And yes, life is just a dream, let’s get lucid in life!

10

Hey now, there’s no need to apologize. It’s beginning to sound you believe we’re above you in some way… This isn’t the case by the slightest. You have insight and suggestions that are rather helpful, especially for people like me and her. You’ve given us something to look for and work with when we had decided there really wasn’t much more to do. So don’t count yourself short.

Your motivation is far from wrong. Any suggestions and any form of ideas are always welcome. Simply offering anything at all is a contribution, and always a positive thing. :wink:

Ok… I think I’m at fault for this one. I wasn’t intending to defy you, or tell you that you didn’t know anything, and it seems to me that may have been how you took it… For that, I apologize myself… I only mean to inform and explain positions.

I didn’t feel any arrogance at all! Honest, you were very respectful and contributing, and even if you point that out, I still have a hard time seeing that. You expressed your point of view as you understood things. You never once said we’re incorrect about anything, and kept yourself open for answers, by very accurately defining that it was simply your view, as everyone should. Don’t feel that that’s the wrong thing to do. I was having a discussion with someone in IRC about how I try to insist that people do not hold back all they have to say about their views and understandings. I enjoy helping people, and it’s difficult for me if I am trying to help someone on the wrong terms because they haven’t expressed their view.

What you havn’t done, is opposed anyone by any means. I think you’re doing perfectly fine.

It indeed would. But I think the issue with that for me, is that I enjoy a flowing story with a goal and future to it. Opening doors, and trying to find a means for surprise is a way to keep the dream interesting in a certain way, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for.

A lot of my adventures consist of being accompanied by friends and companions, or associating with DC’s that have a curtain role. That to me, is a very important part of any adventure. And it would be easy for them to get lost in your lucidity.

Well, no, I havn’t tried to meditate within an LD. I’m not really that experienced in the understanding of meditation, and when people say that, I get a little question mark in my head of being unsure what exactly it is. Could you explain it a little more? What purpose do you believe it would have, and what do you believe it might yield? I would curtainly have no issue taking the time to try it, I am just not sure exactly what it is :tongue:

Don’t be so intimidated. To be quite honest, as I was reading your first response, I was looking up to you quite respectfully. I still do. I’m most curtain you have more knowledge and understanding about a lot of things that I do not, and I’m more than happy to learn from it. I didn’t mean to sound like I was opposing or disagreeing with you, I only meant to inform, and I’m sorry if that’s how I came off. I’m a kind and gentle person, and I don’t place anyone below me by any means. As long as you wish to be here, as I told Laniburger, you’re family. So don’t feel any less than that. Express your views and concerns, as well as your questions and understandings. :content:

11

Hi Lumessence,

No, no, I don’t see it that way, we are all equal, some have more qualities in this, others in that. Just wanted to apologize really well, and maybe placed myself a little lower in doing this.
See it more like a personal thing of my own, although you didn’t meant to do this, you held a mirror in front of my face. I was indeed little frustrated, and after realising this, I found myself rather arrogant :tongue:
Look life is like a dream, you can learn from it any-time, if you are open for what your life shows you about your unconscious state :smile:

Don’t worry, I get what you wanted to make clear to me. It’s clear now.

I think I understand.

I am very curious about what’s you point of view about shared dreaming: do you think it is possible, do you have experience with this? The friends you like to hang out with in your dreams, are these DC’s or is there more behind it? Just curious, I don’t know what to think about it myself, had not enough time in LD’s to find out more about this.

Ok, I am happy to write about, it, let me find the right words first, I will answer on this later.

OK, I promise :content:

Don’t worry, it was just personal, as I explained, nothing to do with your post, you indeed seem very gentle.
It is really nice to meet you.

DreamyStivi.

12

Hi DreamyStivi,

I am more than happy to answer any questions you have. I will try to answer them now and I hope you can understand what I am saying. I have honestly never tried meditating in my life before so I have not tried meditating in a dream state either. I do currently use personal relaxation techniques both before falling asleep and when dreaming in order to allow my subconscious to fill my dream. Its not meditating its just a matter of regular patterned deep breaths and consciously making an effort to keep a clear mind. I have never experienced dream sharing that I am aware of, but I don’t have much knowledge in this area either. I have had dreams where I have interacted with people who are deceased but I think this is probably more a reflection of my own mind. I have used dreams to study one of my med exams before. It was the night before a final exam and without meaning to I fell asleep going over what I had learnt in my mind. When I started dreaming I was sitting down and had my textbook and study notes in front of me and was studying like I had been doing before going to bed. I think the thing that really made this interesting to me was when I was actually in my exam that day, I could recall the information from my dream like I was remembering a memory, including very specific information. I didn’t honestly intentionally create that dream situation but when I realised what was happening I utilised its benefits. In regards to opening doors and looking for surprises I am the same as Lumessence whilst that can yield some interesting results its not the same as having your subconscious take you on a ride in your dream.
While I have been writing this I have also been thinking about your shared dreams question - I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible honestly. I truly do believe almost anything is possible in dreams and in life. The people and characters I interact with in my dreams, some of them have definitely given me some answers I could never have imagined and more than that dreams have also helped me a lot emotionally. Not just by helping me understand my subconscious better but also giving me the emotional strength I needed to make serious changes in my life. I will give you an example, before I applied for university I was torn by my life decisions and these weighed very heavily on me - Further to that I also had a sense of self doubt about whether I could even get in to uni let alone finish it. That night I had this lucid dream, its actually one of my memorable ones because it is one of about 5 where I didn’t have much control in the dream. I had some control but not to the extent I usually do - this dream played out a scenario/movie. The next morning when I woke up it was like a had an emotional transplant. I decided that day to quit my job, enrol in uni and I had the confidence and will power to know that not only was I going to get in but I was going to top my class… and well the rest is history. Sorry if I have said too much personal information but I wanted to give you some examples to try and answer your question more thoroughly.
Thank you for all your ideas, truly they are very good ideas and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I am hoping that I will be able to give you some advice and help you the same way you are currently helping me. Please, no question is too big or small I would love to help you or anyone else in any possible way I can.

Thank you
Laniburger

13

Hi Laniburger, very nice to meet you and I am also more than happy to share.

About meditating, I will start a separate post on this.
About deceased in a dream. I also met deceased in a dream two times, don’t know if it was real or not, but anyhow it was extremely healing to me.

That is extremely interesting, the only similar case I ever heard of was of a high accomplished lama (spiritual teacher in Tibetan buddhism) of whom is said he also used his dreams to continue studying texts. He intentionally placed his textbook on his desk, opened on the page he wanted to start, and then went to sleep. He never talked about it (lamas never show off their capacities), but people close to hem noticed his book was open on some page and when he got up in the morning, he turned serveral pages further without reading it, he did this every night until he finished the book. So we can asume he studied it in his dreams.

You have so many lucid dreams, why don’t you experiment with it. Try it out. You can always try to pay me a visit :smile: in my dreams, but I am not so often lucid, so you will have a big job of getting me lucid if you succeed in this.

Cool. I know dreams can be our best guides.

No need to say sorry, I find it very interesting. It is you who should guard what you wanne share or not, but with me everything is safe. I became a Buddhist a few years ago, so I had to take a vow not to harm any living being, at least not intentionally. But this is a public forum, so you can always PM me if you feel uncomfortable sharing thing in broad public.

Offcourse you do. I will have more questions, but have to go now, please try to experiment with shared dreaming and let me know, it will at least give you some new challenge, isn’t it?

Thanks,

DreamyStivi.

14

I have to thank you very much Laniburger and Lumessence. I got a beautiful LD this morning and I am convinced that I had it because of our conversation. Realising there are people like you who have lucid dreams very easily made me realise that LD is possible without effort. Went I went to bed last night I was convinced that I was going to have more then one LD, I ended up having one, but a very beautiful and rather long one, so I am very happy.

Unfortunately I forgot all my plans: meditating in the dream, trying dream sharing. But it was nice, I got lucid in a big house, but while trying to find a way out and stepping trough several walls, I suddenly was in a plane high up in the sky. There was a dog accompanying me, took him with me and just jumped down, free falling very fast till the point we (me and the dog) where going to crash, but then I slowed everything down and made a perfect soft landing.

Then I was in beautiful spring landscape, could smell the flowers and blossoms, flying, enjoying, almost losing the dream, but able to prolong it by shouting “more lucidity”, “more brightness”, …

From now on I plan to have as much LD’s until I get bored of it myself :smile:

15

hi,

I havent’ read the whole conversation here, actually just the first few posts. I read that there are two (maybe more) frequent LDers that find their LD’s rather boring and unchallenging. May i suggest you read writerscube’s dream journal? It’s full of amazing stories of his dream world which he has created and revisites every night. Some entries tell the story of him spending multiple weeks/months in one dream. He has built entire civilisations that function on their own. Changing everytime he visits them. It’s rather amazing reading all about his adventures/creations.

[community.ld4all.com/t/writerscubes-dreamworld-log-dream-diary-3/29215/1)

16

I’m glad it helped! Sorry I havn’t responded in a while. I’ve been occupied…

Don’t worry, I think this happens to a lot of people.
(BTW, I did change my avatar, and name slightly. So you’re not confused :tongue: )

17

Why haven’t I seen WritersCube’s DJ before? I love reading his adventures, amazing stuff indeed. Thanks for linking that :smile:

18

@Chime,

Yes, I am impressed by WinterCube’s Dream Universe, it proves what I was about to write (mind is endless), but another option to creating even more illusion, is to understand and transcendent illusion, a more spiritual way of using your ability to LD at will.

@Luminessence,

Wow, nice avatar…

Post comming up next: meditation in dreams… it got rather long, excuse me, but there was no other way :tongue:

19

Hi Luminessence, Laniburger and maybe other frequent LDers,

I am definitely not an expert in meditation, so don’t take what I write for granted, but I studied a lot about it, especially in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, so I will try to explain what Tibetan Buddhists kinda understand meditation to be.

To understand traditional meditation in a Buddhist context, you first have to understand a little about the Buddhist paradigm (view of reality).

Buddhists believe that, although we have many pleasurable moments, our lives are controlled by suffering: we can get (or are afraid of getting) sick, we can die (or are afraid of…), … And they believe the cause of this suffering is our mind and only our mind.

Freeing ourselves from suffering is thus to be found in freeing our mind from causing more and more suffering: controlling our mind, knowing our mind, transforming our mind and in the end overcoming our mind. Meditation is the key practice on this path.

The first stage of meditation is single pointed meditation. The theory is: our minds produces suffering, if we can calm down this mind by blocking his operation, we go beyond suffering. Blocking the operation of the mind can be achieved by concentrating on one single point and keeping this for an hour, hours, days…

The most known technique is to focus on your breath, the best technique (that’s my opinion) is to focus on your breath gliding through your nostrils, in and out. It helps to try to be aware of the temperature of the air (it is slightly fresh when it enters your nose, slightly warm when it leaves your noise). I read here that many lucid dreamers practice this, but more as a relaxation technique (it is indeed very relaxing), with single pointed meditation it goes much further than that.

First you have a general, rather broad focus, the whole area around your nose. Very often your thoughts pull you away, so you have to be aware, and if you notice your attention is slowly directing to something else, you just bring it back to your nose. While you get better and better in this, you notice that the thoughts are not the problem, it is our mind following them that breaks the meditation. Meditation is NOT being free from thoughts, it is being free from following thoughts, distractions, sounds, …

If you get better in this (it takes training) you can focus more precisely, first to one of your nostril (I always choose the one that has the most freely throuhpass, there is always one that breathes more freely), then to a very tiny point in the middle of that nostril, it’s like zooming into that point and yet always focusing on a smaller point, until your mind goes kinda like trough that point and then becomes completely silent, after this it’s like your awareness starts to broaden although your mind stays compelety still. If you can get this far you feel some sort of bliss, and you can stay in this state for hours without effort.

Most types of meditation just aim for this bliss. True, if you can experience it, you have no suffering anymore at that moment, in the contrary you feel very good, blissfull, but if you stop meditating, suffering is back there, so buddhists don’t ever stop there, they continue to the next stage.

The second stage of meditation is insight meditation. First you settle your mind in a very calm state (see above), then you start to analyze in order to develop wisdom. With wisdom and only with wisdom you can escape from the suffering outside of the meditation. It seems awkward to analyze while meditating, but you have to understand it is no intellectual analyzing, but rather realizing things with whole your body and mind. The purpose is to slowly change your view, your mindset to a more enlightened mindset. It is very hard to explain this, you will have to understand the notion of enlightenment for this, and this is something not easy to understand. Anyhow, at this stage you normally need to study about buddhism, non-duality, emptiness and things like that, in order to be able to discover this knowledge in yourself. If you don’t like this, you can stick to single pointed meditation, as long as you know this is not the end, and don’t get addicted to it, you will progress automatically to wisdom in the end.

You find these two types of meditation in every kind of buddhism. But there is one buddhism, the one that is practised in Tibet, that goes even further. Depending on the school (there are 4 main schools) one calls this even more advanced technique Dzochzen or Mahamudra. In Dzochzen/Mahamudra (the most direct path to enlightment) the former two types of meditation are united in one.

You don’t meditate on breath, a candle, a chackra, or something that is out there, you just focus on mind itself. You just try to become aware of awareness itself, to the essence of your mind, which is according to Tibetan buddhist the clear light: empty, yet appearing, the basis of everything. This is even harder to explain, because intellect cannot grasp this, it has a non-dual characteristic, and our intellect can only think dualistically (this opposed to that, me opposed to you, good opposed to bad, inside opposed to outside). In the clear light there is no inside, no outside, no good/bad, no me/you, there is only pure awareness that is aware of itself, and pure bliss (the highest bliss possible). You can never understand this, grasp this with your intellect. You can only experience it, and if you do, consciously and for some lengthy time, naturally you break through suffering forever.

It is said that you get a spontaneous glimpse of this when you die, and when you have an orgasm and (if you would be able to stay conscious) in your deep sleep without dreams.

This is only a very brief explanation and I could be expressing it wrong, I am not qualified to explain all this, I just want to share what meditation is, like I understand it to be in a Tibetan Buddhist context. Just to have an idea what possibilities it has, much more than the relaxing possibilities where meditation in the west usually ends. Even if this “liberating from suffering”-thing doesn’t appeal to your life and mindset, you could learn from Buddhists that meditation has much more deeper levels then relaxation alone, it can give you great bliss, wisdom, strength and turn your life in something much more valuable, meaningful and easier to cope with.

Now, what has all this to do with lucid dreaming?
A lot!

Meditating in dreams is said to be very powerful.

The Tibetans developed a whole system called dream yoga, to train yourself to become lucid and use this lucidity to transform your mind.

They say that whatever meditation you do, if you do it in a dream (while conscious) it has 10, 100 to 1000 times more effect. Why, because our biggest problem with meditation is the limitations of our body. Mind has no limits, but connected with the body it is very hard to use these limitless capabilities. While we are awake, our mind is very gross, very heavy. While we dream, it is much more subtle, light and free, and while we deepsleep without dreams even more subtle, light and free.

So when you practice single pointed meditation, insight meditation or Mahamudra/Dzochzen in a lucid dream you get much more benefit from it.

But how to meditate in a dream? I don’t know, I have not enough lucid dreams and not enough stability in lucid dreams to try it out. But I have some ideas:

-single pointed meditation: difficult, because if you focus too much on one point this wakes you up, doesn’t it? I think you need more Mahamudra meditation (a special form of single pointed meditation).

-insight meditation: perfectly possible in a dream. Just trying to find out: are you the central DC, the dreambody you experience or are you the dream or are you even more than the dream. In lucid dreams, this can be a very active meditation, because all is happening in your mind anyhow, so analyzing in the dream is testing things out, like making this dreambody very, very large, then making it very, very small, multiplying yourself in many dreambodys, making yourself disappear, transforming yourself in an animal, in multiple animals, in a house, a lake, a mountain, … I am not fantasizing, believe me, this is dream yoga: experimenting with this “you”, the center of your experience, in order to disassociate mentally from being or belonging to a body. Actually you are the whole dream (even more than that), but because we are so used to be “some body” we mentally project a dream body and experience all the rest as outside us. Doing all this strange things in dreams is to get used to you being mind, limitless and endless, not that limited, isolated, small creature we mostly feel we are. If you can realize this (not just intellectually, but from very own experience) this should also have great (positive) impact on your normal waking life. Meditating like this is transforming your mind towards enlightenment.

-Mahamudra: try to be aware of your awareness in the dream, this is maybe difficult to understand, it is like taking a meta position. You are not just experiencing what is happening (we do this all the time, in dream and in waking life), but you are experiencing that you are experiencing. Where you dissociate from your dreambody in insight meditation, in Mahamudra you dissociate from mind itself. When you would be able to do that, your dream should end (when you are aware of awareness itself, there is no need for external stimuli anymore, nor real, nor dreamed ones), but you should stay asleep and consciously. You would experience the clear light, the most subtle state of your mind, the basis of everything.

Concerning the last state, the clear light, a specific author of many books on Tibetan Buddhism, and also on lucid dreaming states that you get to this state of clear light in a dream just simply by closing your dreameyes and staying aware. But I don’t believe it can be that simple. Maybe it is, if you could stay aware, without waking up, but this will be the difficulty. It is easy for us to stay aware when we see things happening in the dream, but when we stop this (by closing our dreameyes) we normally or fall asleep or wake up. But neither of this two should happen. Just staying aware in total darkness, nothingness, emptiness.

Sorry, very, very long post. But hey, you can’t talk about this in a few sentences.

What I really, really would love that you frequent lucid dreamers would try, is two things:

-The active insight meditation: maybe just start with changing your size, or if your already experienced this, multiplying yourself.

-The closing of your dreameyes while in a lucid dream and trying to stay aware without wanting to have external stimuli.

Off course I want to try out this all myself, I have to, meditation is only possible by own experience, not by reading or hearing the experiences of others, but I first have to get more lucid dreams. Because these things need practice, and repetition, and this is very hard with only one or two LD’s a month. I mostly end up doing stupid things, just flying around, because it has been so much time since my last LD.

I once sat in meditation posture (not needed by the way) in a LD and closed my eyes, but I was not very high lucid, I couldn’t maintain my awareness or something, I just woke up. If you only have one or two LD’s a month, that really sucks. So I am very hesitant to try it again, unless I hear from your experiences that it can lead to something.

It’s just a request, see if you like it or not, maybe it is a new challenge and maybe it can greatly help and especially stimulate others, but maybe not. Anyhow, it helped me a lot writing about this to arrange my own thoughts about this subject. I know now perfectly clear where I am after with LD’s in the long run.

[b]Sweet dreams :tongue:

DreamyStivi.[/b]

20

Hurray, another LD.

Every time you write something to me Luminessence, I get lucid in a dream. Is this coincidence? :smile:
Please keep posting to me! :tongue:

And… I remembered what I had to do in the dream: dream meditation!
So I tried it myself: trying to get bigger, unfortunately it did’t work very well. I didn’t know how to do it, just thought I should blow myself bigger. It seemed to be working but then, like a balloon you inflate and then let go, with great power I was pushed behind through walls of stone, nice feeling though, but I was again at my normal size, maybe little bigger, hard to tell, I searched for objects to compare my size: I saw a toilet, some sinks, but they were normal size, not very small, so no, I was still the same size :smile:

Then I woke up. Happy, very happy that I could experiment myself. But I hope others will try it also and share experiences. We could help each other, it is like flying, I guess, you have to learn it first.

Sweets dreambody transformations,

DreamyStivi.

21

Might I ask how you manage to do this each night? I know it mostly just comes naturally but is there any tips you can give to how you always have the ability to become lucid?