OK, here is another post:
In the Tibetan cosmology there are three kinds of dreams:
1. Ordinary dreaming. Ordinary dreams can be lucid or not. More often not. These ordinary dreams arise from personal karmic traces such as day residue and unfulfilled desires, etc.
2. Dreams of Clarity. These also can be lucid or not. These arise from trans-personal karmic traces. These can be prophetic or dreams or dreams with mythic themes or cultural religious overtones. These dreams are very memorable and usually very vivid and numinous.
3. Clear Light Dreams. There is not really anything one can say about clear light dreams except that there is no duality. There is no difference between subject and object, individual and universal, body and cosmos, etc. These are always lucid.
"If one is not aware in vision (day to day experience), it is unlikely one will be aware in behavior. If one is not aware in behavior, it is unlikely one will be aware in dream. And if one is unaware in dream, one will unlikely be aware in the Bardo after Death." -The Mother Tantra
So the goal of Dream Yoga is to increase your clarity. I find that our ordinary dream practice of using a journal, improving recall, reality testing, does well for this. But I think some supplemental practices that are required are a daily meditation practice, and looking for the dreamlike quality of day to day life and memories and hopes.
I got ahead of myself. Here are the FOUR FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICES:
1. Removing Karmic Traces:
Throughout the day practice recognition of the dream-like nature of life and the same recognition happens in dreams. Upon awakening in the morning, think "I am awake in a dream." The emphasis is on you, the dreamer rather than on the objects of your experience. Remind yourself that you are dreaming up your experiences and emotions. This exercise is applied in the moment of encountering phenomena and before a mental reaction occurs (such as mind filtering all perceptions in a trance of non-lucidity).
2. Removing Grasping and Aversion:
This is essentially the same practice as above but you specifically direct the same lucid awareness to emotionally shaded reactions that occur in response to the elements of your experience. Apply as soon as any grasping or aversion arises. "This anger is a dream." "This desire is a dream."
3. Strengthening Intention:
Y'all are familiar with this one. Review the day backwards before going to sleep. Be determined to recognize dreams of the night for what they are. Contemplate the dream-like nature of memory and hopes. Determine to be lucid, pray for lucidity.
4. Cultivate memory and Joyful Effort.
In the morning review the night and try to remember all the details of your dreams and if you were lucid or not.
Once a year it is ideal to take a week off and go on retreat and remember your whole life backwards! It is hard to do. Try to remember every detail!!! It is as hard as trying to remember a dream. Contemplate how your life is like a dream. Try to remember your birth. Try to remember being in the womb. Try to remember the bardo state before rebirth. Try to remember your past life. But don't get ahead of yourself. Start with trying to remember THIS life first!
What the Tibetans meditate on in order to increase clarity is the Tibetan syllable "A" which looks like this:
They visualize a white "A" at the third eye as they go to bed.
When the brainwaves get deeper they visualize a red "A" at the throat.
At the same time they hear the sound: :AAAAAAAAAAH"
They try to keep awareness of these symbols while they sleep.
This is how they do the WILD technique.
the sound "AH" represents space and clarity and the essence of everything and all the elements. It represents the clear light. The symbol is the "key" for this also.
When visualizing the white A at the third eye, try to visualize the rainbow around it as well.
The red one at the throat is actually clear, sitting on a red four-petaled lotus, and the "A" picks up the color of the lotus the way a crystal does when you place it on a cloth.
The Tantra Mantra "OM AH HUNG" is a good one to purify karmic traces. Each syllable is intoned slowly and powerfully. With OM visualize a laser coming from the third eye of a Buddha or Deity etc. entering your third eye and purifying it. AH a laser from throat to throat, Hum a laser from heart to heart. This is just a neat meditation. Do this over and over again. Then when you are done you can either walk into the visualization of the Buddha and merge with it or have it enter your crown chakra and merge with you so that you are the Buddha. The object of Tantra is to enlighten your mind, speech, and body. Buddha mind, Buddha speech, and Buddha body!
When you are familiar with all this remind me to go more into the three bodies/universes and which one the dream body is!!!
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