For those just joining us, you should be caught up through here...
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...r-day-5-a.html
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For those just joining us, you should be caught up through here...
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...r-day-5-a.html
The next section starts with an experience a lot of you will be familiar with. Then we go from there...
Quote:
Chapter 6 - Leaden-body dreaming
"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” – Eddie Cantor
People’s first lucid dreams are often short. Those first brilliant moments of awareness as the veil lifts and the whole world comes crashing to life are nothing short of miraculous. We often respond to those moments with excitement and delight. Feelings of success, joy, and thrill overwhelm us, our hearts stampede, and we end up waking ourselves up. It takes a few tries, but eventually we learn to control our excitement. We let lucidity happen. Like catching sight of a deer in the wild, we don’t go, “OMG, A DEEEEEEEER!!!!!” because the first time we did that the deer bounded away while our mouths were still open excitedly forming words. Instead, when we see the deer, we stop and pour all of our attention into the moment. Joy and thrill may still be present, but our focus isn’t on that, we don’t want to lose sight of the deer. After a few moments, we grow bold and start inching our way forward, wanting to see how close we can get. If we remain our normal selves, loudly tramping through the woods, we miss out on the beauty. It flees from us, and if we’re too caught up in our own story, we may not even know it had been there in the first place.
To really catch hold of the hidden wonders of the dream, another shift is required. We need a more careful, considered approach, not inclined to easy and sudden loss of lucidity. In the dream or in life, as long as we’re going full speed ahead, in our own worlds, talking on cell phones, daydreaming, and rushing through life, we know that we’re going to miss out on the magical moments that surround us.
“Slow down!” the proverbial Zen masters tell us. We’re missing out. We’re missing the sunrise, the song of the lark, the smells of fresh baked bread wafting down the street from the corner baker. If we start scanning across spiritual traditions, we will find this theme of slowing down echoed over and over. We are living our lives and dreaming our dreams at break-neck speeds, trapped in our own worlds. We’re so busy living inside the dream that we swear is real, we miss out on the lucid reality that surrounds us.
If we consider the oft-heard message of slowing down, of stopping and smelling the roses that so many traditions advise us to do, it should be of no surprise to find similar clues coming from the Dream. After your first few lucid dreams, once you’ve gotten some stability in that realm, certain outlier experiences begin to occur. One such experience is the leaden body.
In a leaden body dream, suddenly or gradually, you find it difficult to move. You could be walking or running like normal, when suddenly it feels as if the air has turned to molasses. If you’ve ever tried to run underwater or waist-deep in a swimming pool, you know the feeling. You struggle with all your might, straining, willing, grunting, and after a seeming eternity, you’ve only managed to take a step. The body has become leaden and slow, simple tasks become monumental efforts.
Leaden body dreams bear all the indications of an outlier experience. Some people confuse these dreams with sleep paralysis (a state in which your consciousness is awake in the real world, your eyes may even be open, but the body hasn’t quite come online yet and you are unable to move), but these are two distinct phenomenon.
I’ve never had a leaden body dream in a highly lucid state. Sometimes they occur towards the end of a lucid dream in which I’m being pulled back into the story, and usually, as soon as I’m experiencing difficulty in movement and start fighting it, I’ve already lost. The experience has become “real” and I’ve completely fallen asleep within the dream.
Despite having lost lucidity, if we continue to explore the leaden body experience, we begin to notice a few things. In my case, as I’m struggling to walk, straining against the air, I become very aware of my legs. I can feel my muscles burning, I can feel tendons stretching, I even become aware of the bones in my legs giving me structure and support. Movement in a leaden body dream is very intense. In order to move, we have to direct all of our attention and will into various parts of the body to get them to behave and move forward. Whatever dream story we were caught up in fades away and becomes unimportant as all our focus is being directed towards movement. We may no longer be in a lucid state, but paradoxically, a certain lucidity begins occurring within the body. The body and all its operations become vivid. We experience our movements fully. Usually, we’re running through the dream, oblivious to our body unless it somehow gets in the way. In the leaden body dream, we become almost oblivious to the dream, unless it somehow gets in the way. The body becomes complex, and if we don’t get frustrated, fascinating.
Our eyes now easily pick out the trail of crumbs scattered across the scene from a dream, and we follow that trail, moving deeper and deeper into strange realms. As we continue down our path, let us take inspiration from the alchemists of old, and when given lead, turn it into gold.
Exercise 6: Leaden-body dreaming
From a seated position, stand up. Now raise your hand.
Normally, these actions are done automatically with no real body awareness. Repeat the actions with as much awareness of movement as you can muster. In standing up, how many muscles were involved? Were you aware of them all? Standing requires many subtle movements, in the toes, the feet, the calves, the thighs, the core, the back, the arms, the neck, the head, the shoulders, and the cooperation of countless other tendons, ligaments, muscles, and systems. Repeat the action, and try to feel everything that happens. Try to feel every movement, every muscle. Repeat the action slower. Increase your awareness of what it takes to perform any simple movement. Experience the movement fully. As if you were in a leaden-body dream, move in extreme slow motion, pouring all of your attention and awareness into experiencing the movements of the body. If you get distracted from experiencing the slow-motion movement, or if any thoughts pop up or random emotions, simply redirect your attention back into experiencing your body move in slow motion. All distractions are unimportant. Once you can fully experience everything involved in simple movements, take a walk continuing to pour all of your attention into the body. Play with movements as you walk, fully experiencing everything in super slow-motion. Be big, have fun, and continue this exercise until a dramatic shift occurs.
I had almost come across this exercise years earlier while taking an acting class called The Alexander Technique. In the Alexander Technique, tensions in the body are discovered and released so that we can move with grace and ease. A common mantra practiced in the class was to “Stop. Feel. Act.”
When we slow down and start moving consciously and purposefully, we take on a different quality. In my Alexander exploration, I was finding tensions in the body and releasing them as I walked. At one point, I felt my whole body suddenly become weightless. I felt like I could fly. Walking had turned into an extraordinary, magical experience. From dull routine to lucid, vivid wonder, I was giddily walking, wondering what was going on.
“Just think, that’s what walking is supposed to feel like all the time,” my teacher said.
Just as the world becomes more vivid in a lucid dream, our bodies too can become more vivid and lucid. By becoming more present in the body, the body can pull us into becoming more present in the world. The dramatic shift mentioned at the end of this exercise has to do with this phenomenon. The shift happens naturally and automatically. Continue the exercise until the “aha!” moment occurs. A new aspect of lucidity is learned via the leaden body route that leads to higher levels of dream awareness than we’ve explored up until now.
Some hints on this one:
1 - the slower, the better
2 - if you're wondering if you've reached the aha moment, you haven't
3 - if you're wondering anything, guide your attention back into moving
4 - once you hit the aha moment, you can speed up a little and play around
5 - HAVE FUN with moving, play with flapping your arms, exploring height, etc
Thanks for the new exercise! This exercise reminds me of a short film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLCM5UXXEAA
So... After reading all of these posts in one sitting, my mindset has changed. I now find myself looking at everything, half-expecting things to be different the next time I look at them. I'm questioning reality, and that's a good start.
However, due to my stoner memory, I can't remember what the earlier exercises were. :doh:
Don't worry, I'll look them over again and try them when I'm in a better setting. Too many distractions where I'm at now.
Random question, but my curiosity is killing me. While you were in South America with those shamans, did you happen to partake in ayahuasca? You made a reference to "plant teachers" somewhere. :wink:
I ask mainly because my first lucid dream came a little over a month after I drank ayahuasca. I had a habit of reality checking and keeping awareness after that experience, before I even had an interest in lucid dreaming. I didn't know what I was doing or why, but I believe my "exercises" might have triggered that first LD!
It reinforced my belief that DMT plays a role in dreaming, anyway.
Oh, and my ayahuasca session was legal, of course. :paranoid:
Interesting. I shall do this during work tomorrow (I walk all day long) how much time is average for aha moment?
I did exercise 5 all the way through and held onto the dream feeling for a while before doing this exercise. It was cool finding out which muscles I was moving to perform the different motions. At first I didn't think I could feel all of them but after repeatedly standing a few times I was finding more and more and I think I noticed most of them. Same with moving my arms. I felt pretty silly doing stuff in slow motion after about 20 minutes and I'm not sure if I ever got to the "aha" moment so I guess I didn't quite get that, but I took a long walk after getting used to my muscles and tried to pay attention to the movements most of the time during it, it felt really interesting. It was pretty easy to get distracted from the feeling though but every time I did I would return my attention back to it after a few minutes. Didn't notice any results in my dreams last night though but I assume this takes a while to have an effect, during the day I notice I'm more aware of my actions and am starting to be able to get a dream-like feeling pretty easily and hold onto it for longer.
I happen to quite like this exercise - in general and especially since you say, there is an aha moment involved!
Still having an eye on this.
Attachment 6891
And I would like to do a bit of off-topicing, sorry, for DMTisYOU.
It got buried in the thread, where you ask, if something is worth to get a thread in Lucid Dreaming News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJH0uyrQ0Hc
It's a scientific analysis - and they have actually found something, if funnily not directly on topic, something on genes and memory.
The text, I wrote for that post comes in the spoiler:
Spoiler for from my original post, pertaining to the video:
All I could think of....what happens when he gets home and finds out he forgot the orange juice? "Doh!"Quote:
Originally Posted by unimatrix
What a great exercise! It ties into so many other things! It felt as if I was moving and walking in a way that I have never experienced! Experiencing movement and body awareness like a child and at the same time noticing so much more in everything around me! Awesome! The effects continued to a lesser degree for quite a while as I continued to go about my day.
I'll sometimes do this exercise in the mornings while making tea. By the time the leaves have fully steeped, it's absolutely overwhelming. Glad you liked it!Quote:
Originally Posted by fogelbise
This reminds me of a teaching I have come across to notice body movements and only move as absolutely necessary. this brought a very peculiar feeling =)
What was the feeling? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodrodrod
It felt different to say the least, not sure how to describe it or if I even reached the aha moment as you know it. One thing that seemed to happen was as if every moment lasted longer, not because I slowed down because it seemed so too otherwise, but it was as if there was more to every moment when i moved. More detail.
For example: In drumming you can have a beat going on quarter notes like 1 2 3 4 , but this felt more like sixteenth notes going 1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a.
When your perception of time starts changing, you're very close. By the end, you will experience time as you would in a lucid dream :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodrodrod
I tried this again yesterday and was able to identify my muscles and the minor movements a bit quicker than before, and notice a few extra. It's fun but I still never got to an "aha" moment, not really sure what I'm supposed to be expecting. I'll hopefully get to try again today and spend more time on it because it sounds interesting.
How long are you going at it? Sounds like it's getting easier. Any time your mind wanders, or you're looking for the aha moment, just redirect all that attention back into the body. When you're really aware of your minor movements, try going bigger. Play with big movement and explore the body.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzzman
I'm doing about 20-30 minutes at least I'd say, I guess I probably need to stick with the very minor movements for longer and go really slow to see if there is a difference. My mind does seem to wander a lot when trying it maybe I'm just over thinking it, I'll try meditating right before I do it because that seems to help me stay focused for a while.
I find that when my mind wanders, if I get really interested in what I'm doing, that helps. Become fascinated by the feel of moving. If any mind chatter is happening, increase your interest and fascination.
I really liked this exercise.
Went trough all days yesterday. Haven't done them all thoroughly but this really caught my attention, so I had to do it right away. And have adopted it throughout the day at work whenever possible. The movement of the body is amazing! Thank you!
All new to LD. This made me question some of the things you've written cvdmehden, like the anticipation of me knowing what to await regarding the feelings of the exercises, with the connection to LD's, which I've yet have no experience of. Other than bouncing out of nightmares a few times when realized that I was dreaming. Nothing much to connect to there...
If I haven't been reading up on other authors work before encountered this, I feel that I would know far to little on how to move forward with yours.
But I'll try it out as good as I can. I think the coin will drop down anytime now. Until then, I'll bath in bliss through my slow motion movements.
What happened to cvdmehden??
Don't we theoretically have day 12 by now? Did the testing come to an early end?
I'm still here, we haven't stopped, we're just paused while the author rewrites the beginning of the book based on the feedback so far. I was going to put up the next bit, but some of the structure is changing because of the rewrite. Will keep you updated :)
I have been keeping up! Doing all practices throughout each day. Haven't hit "the moment" for this exercise. I was doing gravity RC before this, so I might have hit it before.will put more effort in it.
Some more stuff to play with... enjoy!
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...s-7-8-9-a.html
