Thread: Dream Yoga

I must admit trying to WILD and imagine places like your room in your mind is an example of meditating, if you haven't before.
I spent 90 mins trying to WILD early this morning and realised I was at least meditating for that time.
It made my daytime meditating today quite easy. It is hard for me to fall asleep sitting up, so it was a good experience.
You shouldn't worry about coming out of meditation if you have an alarm.
It's not like a bad trip or anything...you do have control.

I suppose I just never dream of my room at any time, so it seems pointless to me.
Should I be trying to start my dreams in my room?
I always have them somewhere else, or they are initiated from my willfull thoughts.
That's the reason for the question of why start in the boredom of your room.
Obviously if it is that familiar, you may pick up unfamiliarities in a dream.
I would like to know the thinking behind memorising your room/house rooms further.
Please continue.

as far as I can see, its not 100% about memorising.

I think its like: IF YOU are being observant enough to memorise places and observe them in detail, then you should be observant enough to spot dream signs...as a habit

anyone please, correct me If im wrong...just how i interpretted the guide

Correct. The idea is maintain complete awareness through all hours of the day; sleeping and waking. We usually walk through life as zombies in our own heads; this is to stop that and be aware at all times. Just as you sleepwalk in dreams, you sleepwalk in life. If you wake up in life, you wake up in dreams.

Very profound Never.

Similar concept to A Course in Miracles, if anyones ever heard of it - a 365 day course in freeing of the mind - one of the core concepts is seeing every object as objective and not subjective, so as to free yourself from attachment to material things. Very buddhist-y, lol.

Thank you for this thread!

I have researched Buddhism for quite a while now but never have started meditating daily. This dream yoga is basically mindfulness meditation - being aware of your surroundings, being in the moment. The realization that this will help me become lucid is extra motivation for me to start doing it. And the little twitch of attempting to reconstruct images of the rooms you've been in is great aswell - my imagination is not very good so it would be good to train it.

This kind of meditation, if I was to call it thus, is very helpful toward an all around balanced life. Thank you for reminding me to start meditating

Hey never, or billybob but I havent seem him in this thread for ages....

in the tut it says this should end up taking 5 seconds per room...
well how is it a non-stop reality check?
is it the fact that you try to remember to ATLEAST LOOK at everywhere you are, to easily catch dreams?

thx

Originally Posted by TheFinalCut

Similar concept to A Course in Miracles, if anyones ever heard of it - a 365 day course in freeing of the mind - one of the core concepts is seeing every object as objective and not subjective, so as to free yourself from attachment to material things. Very buddhist-y, lol.

Actually, buddhists have a very subjective world view.

Originally Posted by james_jlc

Hey never, or billybob but I havent seem him in this thread for ages....

in the tut it says this should end up taking 5 seconds per room...
well how is it a non-stop reality check?
is it the fact that you try to remember to ATLEAST LOOK at everywhere you are, to easily catch dreams?

thx

In a way, but it is more than that. When you look around the room you make a subconscious memory of it. In time you will always know when something is out of place. You can get so good as to know who is in any given room, what they are saying, and how everything is positioned; but this is not necessary; I am just saying it is possible. Have you ever set your body clock to wake you up at an exact time? If so, then use the same principle in mapping rooms. Just know that you will remember. My method is not quite the same though. I really don't map rooms myself but just stay in the moment as much as I can.

It is a reality check in the sense that as you go about your day you will in time know immediately when something is not right. Have you ever thought you were missing money or something but weren't sure if you had just misplaced it somewhere? Well that won't be a problem. You will know. In dreams the wondering is completely bypassed to the point where dreams almost start lucid. Most of the time for me lucidity is not a big surprise anymore; your mind is saying "yup, this is a dream" just as normally as anything else.

I have really become lazy with the mindfulness over the last 6 months, because of my focus on literature lately; but even so I am lucid most of the time. In other words, once you learn this ability, it never really goes away. That is the bright side of all the hard work. You do not have to be super aware forever.

ah, thank you very much.

also, during meditation...is there anything I can do to increase chance of lucidity? remember all the things I've seen in the day?

Depends on the meditation. If you are doing concentration or insight meditation then it automatically helps in lucid dreams. I made a post earlier in this thread I think with meditation techniques. These can really help you in all aspects of life.

i was just wondering too Never...how much success do you get with this? Like, i presume you are very observant out of Habit....so DILDs every night?

and how long does it take you to get to this point?

Thanks for your help, you've been quite helpful

Originally Posted by Never

I have really become lazy with the mindfulness over the last 6 months, because of my focus on literature lately; but even so I am lucid most of the time. In other words, once you learn this ability, it never really goes away. That is the bright side of all the hard work. You do not have to be super aware forever.

I've thought about constant awareness and training it but one thing came to my mind that added to laziness and other problems I've had so I didn't...doesn't it cause mental exhaustion?

I find that with physical exhaustion, I gain mental fatigue as well. Or, perhaps, it's the other way around. Either way, it seems like actions/events/happenings throughout the day exhaust me to an extent.

Being constantly aware seems even physically exhausting to me by the end of the day (or, like I said, maybe it's vice-versa). But what I'm not sure of is whether such awareness is what causes it or if it's a flaw of mine that can be fixed with this very awareness training.

Any thoughts?

James -

Actually, I am a very internal person; usually in my own thoughts more than being observant of anything, but I practiced mindfulness intensely for months. It started to work after only a few weeks, and after about a month I was having DILDs every night. I never kept a dream journal, so I probably have more than I am even aware of.

I usually WILD most of the time; as many times as I can per night because they are clearer and easy to remember without having to get up and write it down. Nonetheless, even though I make no effort to remember dreams or become lucid I still get at least one DILD per night and sometimes more (that I can remember). There is never a need to do a reality check. When you see a flying monkey you just know it is a dream.

Above all else, in my experience (not just with dreaming) I have learned to control my mind in unusual ways through simply believing I can do things. Hard to explain, but if you sincerely go about mindfulness with the intent of staying lucid while asleep, it will just work. Most of the time people think "this isn't working" or "it's too hard" etc etc. You are literally telling your subconscious to fail. Think that it will be easy, and think about dreams all day long for at least a few weeks; comparing them to reality. Now I will admit that mindfulness is a pain. I don't keep it up anymore unless I am in the woods or otherwise in nature, when it is fun; but you need to get a good start by doing it all the time, even during boring work or school days when you would rather be somewhere off in fantasy land, and of course regular concentration meditation is easy and should be kept up for a few minutes a day.

Originally Posted by Merlock

I've thought about constant awareness and training it but one thing came to my mind that added to laziness and other problems I've had so I didn't...doesn't it cause mental exhaustion?

I find that with physical exhaustion, I gain mental fatigue as well. Or, perhaps, it's the other way around. Either way, it seems like actions/events/happenings throughout the day exhaust me to an extent.

Being constantly aware seems even physically exhausting to me by the end of the day (or, like I said, maybe it's vice-versa). But what I'm not sure of is whether such awareness is what causes it or if it's a flaw of mine that can be fixed with this very awareness training.

Any thoughts?

Interesting. It is hard to say. I know that in my case mindfulness never really caused physical exhaustion; in fact it makes you rather peaceful. The problem is that it is hard to keep up because you REALLY want to just let go and think about other things. I suppose for some this tug of war can cause mental fatigue, which of course leads to physical fatigue; but if you are stubborn you can bypass the strain altogether.

Perhaps the best thing I have gained from mindfulness is the knowledge of it's uses. If ever I am frustrated or angry (I mean to a great point), all of it can be shut off by just being aware. Many of the things that bring mental exhaustion can be bypassed with mindfulness. Worry is a great example. Let us say you are incessantly worrying about some perceived illness you may have. Instead of going over it a million times and killing yourself, you simply make a decision about what to do about it, and immediately switch to being aware. The worry goes away and the problem is eventually fixed. You "switch off" the nonsense.

Yes at first it is annoying, and like I told James; ultimately I am a thinker; an escapist; as I find more in my own head of worth than what society has to offer, but I can become "super aware" now when I choose, like when I need to or want to in nature, etc. The idea is to give yourself the experience so that you may switch it on and off when you want to and always be "relatively" free of stress.

thanks again, really helpful!

i guess, its just practice makes perfect

Holy crap I just realized the implications of the "continuous conscious" thing. Wow, I was already perturbed by how much time we "waste" sleeping, but now if I can master this I can be "productive" 24/7!

Hey guys,

Just sent a pm to a mod to update the tutorial.


I've beautified it a bit, as well as added some links to places that talk about image streaming.
Hopefully these new links will help those of you out that are having extremely hard times with the visualization.

Expect more updates in the near future, I'm about to really start working hard at this again.

I'm definitly going to start practicing dream yoga. I discovered the tutorial today and I like it. I feel that it's exactly what I need. I mean I'm usually very inattentive, and only for that I have a lot of difficulties to do LDing!
And I definitly have to practice my visualisation skills...
Thank you for that very pratical guide of dream yoga!

This is exactly what I used to do. Only I studied with people who made it much more difficult than it should be. Religious traditionalists and such.

If you've got the time, give this a try. It completely enhances the way you experience your waking and dreaming life.

I like to describe it as similar to speed reading vs normal reading. You sort of have to take in everything all at once, hold it in your mind, and just trust that your brain can handle it all. If you've experience with speed reading, try to speed read your life as you cruise around.

One added long term benefit- I am now incredibly unbelievably amazingly good at finding things. I know people who will call me from across town to help them find things they have misplaced. Everyone's good at something, right?

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

This is exactly what I used to do. Only I studied with people who made it much more difficult than it should be. Religious traditionalists and such.

Wow, its comforting to see that someone that was actually religiously trained in Dream Yoga approves of the tut


Thanks a lot for the replies everyone.

im kind of confused you say that you have to do a non-stop reality check right? So do i have to look at my hand all the time? Or where you refering to looking around your surroundings and noticing anything weird as your reality check

Originally Posted by westonci

im kind of confused you say that you have to do a non-stop reality check right? So do i have to look at my hand all the time? Or where you refering to looking around your surroundings and noticing anything weird as your reality check

The act of being constantly aware of your environment is itself a reality check.

Before all the "scientific" research that was used to find out about various reality checks, people had to rely on only this method: recognizing mess ups in their environments.


The principal behind this is the same one that people used to use, except on crack; by constantly being aware of your environment while awake, you'll also be constantly aware of it while asleep (eventually), thus allowing for nonstop reality checking.
Notice that you don't have to try to think about where your at all the time. Constant lucidity of your environment just comes naturally after you've been practicing dream yoga for a good amount of time.