Thread: Clear Light Perspective

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you.

Self-awareness is key to Lucid dreaming in that it is how you are able to both know you are dreaming and that everything in the dream comes from you (or, for the dream-sharers/ AP surfers out there: how you know when something that is not from you has entered your dream).

I ramble more about self-awareness in my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, if you're interested.

From what I can see, Lidybug's clear light perspective can be an instrumental exercise for building self-awareness because the act of shifting your attention to another viewpoint can clarify your vision of your self, the effects you are having on other things, and they on you.

I hope that made sense; a strong sense of self-awareness is probably the most important tool for successful LD'ing (and living in general) to acquire and wield, even though it gets so little attention in these forums.

thanx Sageous,you've been very helpful to me

That's really intresting stuff, Chimpertainment.

BTW the perspective thing came out in a dream last night. I was almost lucid but didn't quiet make the connection. I'm going to keep at it!

This is interesting. After some time of doing ADA and some kind of dream yoga, I decided to do something like this: see myself from a different perspective. Sometimes, I see it happen out of the blue, that I just see myself from a different direction.

It's a nice read, and though I encountered a technique similar to this a few years back, I never really considered using it with lucid dreaming. ^_^ Thank you for introducing it here.

This happens to me sometimes in dreams, while my perspective shifts to another DC, etc.

Originally Posted by Sageous

"Brilliant" post, Lidybug! I hope many, many dreamers read it, and pay attention to it.

I'd like to add just one more thing, though: This exercise will not only open doors to understanding "everything," but more important it might help you deeply understand your Self, and for me a powerful sense of Self is key to fully grasping who you are and what your presence in, well, everything, really means...

Originally Posted by lidybug

Yes! I experienced this today while on a road trip. I was the passenger in the front seat and with everything I saw, the man on the bike, the bird on a wire, the bus driver, the dog on the front porch of a house, the clouds in the sky. I just let my conciousness wonder into each of these perspectives and it was beautiful I felt UNLIMITED (i started to write unlimited in lower case then realized that is the point you made above). Amazing!!! Life is unfolding before me like MAGIC!

I know this is an old thread, but feel strongly that it is a powerful concept that deserves to see the light of day again. I am working on awareness and saw Sageous pointed to the thread. Lidybugs example in the quote above allows you to walk a mile in another man's shoes, to understand your loved ones, to communicate better and all kinds of things. I also imagine the bird on the wire, expanding to the a view from the sky, to one from space, from another galaxy, and beyond. For people, I try to understand how my actions or tone or anything affect loved ones. I don't know how this relates but shortly after the time "the light bulb went off" I was at a restaurant with music going and I was keying in on all the details and felt myself transported to another place. It felt like I was on vacation and I could almost hear the ocean waves outside the restaurant (though no ocean nearby IRL)...so magical! I am very far from understanding "everything" but can see the potential as referred to in Sageous' quote above.

Spoiler for expanded example:

A more mundane example that this thread and the awareness process helped aid was while I was eating a chocolate chip and oat cookie. I started thinking about where the ingredients came from, who cultivated the land, planted, watered/nurtured and then harvested the sugarcane (and the oats, flour, cocoa beans, butter from the milk from the cow eating grass growing in the earth and feeding off nutrients in the earth), how it was transported and the resources used to transport it and why less processed foods may be better for us and the environment (though I doubt many would mistake this kind of cookie for nutrition). Further, the baking of the cookie, the making of the oven, the delivery of the gas and/or electricity...so much (too much?) goes into that little cookie that isn't even good for me in the first place.

**Please add your examples as we all explore awareness.

How about a morbid example that came in a mini-dream(?) inspired by the movie The Fountain and my fear-countering mechanism to revive this thread?

A dog eats me up..I don't fight it. I am digested & excreted. I become part of the soil and nourish a tree...that eventually dies..but that's OK..it's part of the cycle.

I don't know that anyone is reading this thread anymore but I still feel the original content deserves continued attention as well as Sageous' informative thread I am still going through here: http://www.dreamviews.com/wild/12557...mentals-q.html

I read my last post and laughed (noticeably, but not exactly out loud) at how silly it sounded. It sounded kind of like a joke, but it wasn't. To clarify my previous post, this was a dream or mini-dream and as such not exactly normal..So a dog is attacking me but I know it is a dream(not counting it as an LD) so I don't fight it with the rest played out as above. In truth, I feel like my waking mind is not quite up to the level represented in the mini-dream. In waking life it seems absurd. And it would be absurd to allow a dog to eat you...but the rest, the overall interconnection with everything around us and the acceptance of our mortality is a lesson I am still working to embrace. I think it is fascinating that dreaming can teach things by removing the limitations and some of the stubborn opinions - right or wrong - of our waking mind. I am not claiming to have come up with this idea, just sharing my personal exploration of things I have learned from various sources and have put them together in my mind and found them to be likely true.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

How about a morbid example that came in a mini-dream(?) inspired by the movie The Fountain and my fear-countering mechanism to revive this thread?

A dog eats me up..I don't fight it. I am digested & excreted. I become part of the soil and nourish a tree...that eventually dies..but that's OK..it's part of the cycle.

This is like a dream you would induce in dream yoga. Allowing yourself to be consumed, and reborn, perceiving the impermanence of the ego, and everything else. B. Allan Wallace recounts a dream of being submerged in a swamp and confronted by an alligator. As it was a dream he allowed the alligator to bite and consume his arm without a second thought. The arm was no more real than the alligator, both are dreamed. Both are seen in the same way in the clear light perspective.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

This is like a dream you would induce in dream yoga. Allowing yourself to be consumed, and reborn, perceiving the impermanence of the ego, and everything else. B. Allan Wallace recounts a dream of being submerged in a swamp and confronted by an alligator. As it was a dream he allowed the alligator to bite and consume his arm without a second thought. The arm was no more real than the alligator, both are dreamed. Both are seen in the same way in the clear light perspective.

Allan Wallace?!

A small aside: I met Allan Wallace at one of LaBerge's dream retreats, and was soundly unimpressed. His bio seems impressive, but in its long shadow is a very small, counter-intuitively egotistical man who left a bad taste in pretty much all the attendees' mouths -- except LaBerge, who loves him.

Just sayin' I guess... I don't know why; maybe because of my deep disdain for charlatans?

I Am Actually, quite surprised to see this post, what you have posted here is what MANY people hope to achieve in the world of Yoga, Even I have been practicing Yoga(Kriya and hata) but I am simply unable to transcend my perception to such a level, maybe it is innate, or maybe I am not simply determined enough, even while reading this, I felt like a blind man being told of how it feels like to see, i.e Even though i can somehow understand the concept of what you are saying, I have no way to feel it out in its entirety , there is an advanced level Yogic program for this particular act of becoming one with all, I have heard that people who have undergone that program begin to look at even to most Inanimate objects as a part of themselves, I think it is about time that I tread along this path as well. If anyone is interested, you can check out "Bhava-spandana", a mid-level yoga program.

Ah - fogelbise - thanks for directing me here - wonderful thread!!

I know, this is sort of off topic - but sort of also not - the rubber hand illusion is one very old but ground-laying and very fascinating experiment:

Rubber Hand Trick Reveals Brain-Body Link - Wired Science

There are also experiments, where a completely illusionary body can be created - maybe I find the link later. That can lead to seeing yourself in front of you and switching back and forth - in full waking state and just per basically "tricking" your mind-body-scheme.

Very under utilized thread I think! I like your example and I think it helps with perspective. I really liked and related to one of the early posts on this thread about seeing yourself passing by in a car from the vantage point of the bird sitting on the fence (or something similar). Did you see this thread as well? http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...-eyeballs.html

What a beautiful thread. Thank you for reviving it so that I could find it

Originally Posted by anotherdreamer

What a beautiful thread. Thank you for reviving it so that I could find it

agreed. This is so essential to lucid dreaming and so important as human beings to learn more about ourselves. Knowing/loving ourselves can allow us to know/love everyone else so that we can become one and hopefully stop the intolerance and hatred. We are one

Reading through this thread has been a delight! I am engaging with Sageouses RRC so got here through that - it's all Wonderfull food for thought, helping me be more and I hope you become more Lucid! Thank you lidybug, Sageous and others sharing.

As a newbie to LD world I am nicely relieved to see SOO much more being treated as important for LDreaming - Self awareness is essential for me as a human being who cares about her life in all the aspects possible - the way it's being spoken about here like this is truly great and I am realy happy it's seen as main helper to actual LD.

I share your enthusiasm Patience108! I truly feel that there are multiple benefits to the practices that promote lucid dreaming and also resulting from the lucid dreams themselves, opening up your mind to see the beauty all around that evades most people's perception. I wish you a belated welcome to Dreamviews!

In Buddhism it's called "Exchanging self with other" and it's supposed to be quite a powerful practice. I like it how all these teachings towards enlightenment tend to converge on the long run regardless of the spiritual path one takes.

Lol I can't believe it, I used the same method of multiple perspectives when I was 7 out of boredoms and later I advanced it to my own meditation technique. It seems some people really think similar.

The identity shift practiced in jnana yoga can be applied to produce these other kinds of experiences also, even though the goal is different.

Originally Posted by lidybug

In my waking state I have been doing a sort of perspective shift through meditation. As I go about my day I take my perspective or consciousness and place it into the food I'm preparing, my pets, my children.... and I try to see what the world looks like through their eyes. I use my dream consciousness to shift my perspective in waking life and know that I can see the situation from any of these perspectives because they are me they all came from my subconscious to create the dream. For Example: To be the consciousness of a carrot. You fill your mind with the essence of the carrot. Know that you came from the ground, that you are a brilliant orange and how the color orange makes you feel, happiness, creation. As the carrot I feel grounded and bright like I stand out visually after taken from the dark nurturing mother earth. I feel like I have clear vision (carrots are good for my eyes). I take pleasure in knowing that so many people enjoy my simple sweetness and I love to be admired in a sea of other veggies that are also for filling our journey and purpose to be consumed and our energy to be filtered through multiple other perspectives that will once again be birthed through mother earth. I do this same technique through the day with just about anything that strikes my thought to do so.
The idea of shifting my consciousness came to me in a dream I had of a lighthouse and I became the light with in the light house and all that the light touches. The most eyeopening dream of my life but now they are happening more often. What I have come to notice is in my dreams of late have been very scattered then I realized it's because I'm seeing the same dream from multiple perspectives at the same time. The clear light dream of the lighthouse and the light dreams I have had since are telling me that perspective is the key to understanding everything. Becoming the perspective of light is clarity. Our dreams are a gate to understanding and practicing in a free of ego state that allows multiple perspectives within the same consciousness simultaneously.

So inspirational! Thank you! namaste!