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Hi Sivason
First a very big thank you for making this class!
I will start out with version 1 step 1 for a while. Do you propose to decide before starting a meditation how long time to use? Normally when I (try to) meditate I set an alarmclock for ten minutes so i don't have to think about when to stop. But is this a bad idea you think?
-Strit
Hi Strit! Thanks for making a note book. I think the time frame should depend on how long you can stay entertained by it. People who have to force themselves to keep at it maybe need to learn to enjoy the first few minutes. I think 10 minutes is a very reasonable period of time. If you are enjoying yourself, of course, there is no harm in longer meditations. With me, meditation is enjoyable, so I can be calm and pleased to meditate for say 30 minutes, but that is only because I am enjoying myself. I would never want a student to grit their teeth and force themselves to meditate for a period of time beyond their comfort level.
Aim for 10 minutes that seem pleasant and interesting, and that should be great.
Hi everyone! It has been almost two weeks. I hope everyone got a chance to practice. The thread Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson 1, has been updated. I have shared a few ways these skills will be useful in LDs, and the thread is now open to Q & A.
Hi Sivason
Sorry for being so late in writing about what I've experienced. I've only done version 1 step 1, as I've never really had any succes with meditation before and found that it'd be better to concentrate on just one type. I've found it quite difficult. Especially because sounds don't seem to be constant but keep coming and going. So I'd be focusing on one sound and then it would be gone. Like a train driving by. Or somebody turning off some machine that had been running. Also when I found a new sound I never knew if it was me who didn't hear it till then, or if it just started. This have really made it difficult if I've tried to focus on more than one sound at a time. If the two sounds were more or less constant I did fine, but if one of them, or both, were coming and going it was almost impossible.
I found that my mind preferred to make some kind of map of where the sounds came from to keep them separated. The sounds from the cars driving by became a line of sounds in front of me. The wind in the tree became a big sphere over my head and a bit to the left. Bird song became small dots of sound all around. I don't know if this is counterproductive or not, but it seems like it would be really hard work to make it any other way.
I also found it very hard to keep focus on any one sound for more than about 10 seconds. My mind seems to get impatient and wants to move on to another sound. Sometimes I ended up focusing on the all the sounds on the same time as if they were just one big changing sound. Then it wasn't a problem with the sounds that were coming and going, 'cause they were all just one. This might have been counter productive to the goal as well.
At this stage none of it is counter productive. It sounds like just relaxing your mind and convincing yourself to stay still, is what you should focus on. Start at the beginning.
Hi again
I know this diffuse vision. When I was a child I loved to look at stereograms and I practised to turn the pages without loosing the "unfocus" of my eyes. At my school we had a ceiling with lines on it and I would lay on the floor looking at it until the lines were floating just centimetres from my eyes. I still do this whenever I see a ceiling or a wall with lines. Just because it's funny. It takes less than a seconds for me to get that effect. Then later I realised that if I look at a lawn with this vision I'm able to see how the wind moves through the grass. Really see the waves of wind and which way they are moving. It's really something. I never before tried to watch a movie with the diffuse vision, but I didn't have a lot of trouble with the ten minutes. The whole thing seemed to be in 3D, especially a part where the camera flew over a city. Sometimes I focus at nothing just to relax.
I never before considered this way of seeing to be an exercise in concentration, but I can easily see how it can be. I guess you could use it for meditations as well. When people meditate with open eyes, is this what they do?
I had a lot more troubles with the other exercises. "The wandering mind recall" was really difficult. I seem to keep repeating my line and thinking about other things at the same time. I can hardly do two or tree repeatings before my mind wanders. Just like when I meditate. But I do seem to do pretty good at the recalling. It's kinda like it's two exercises in one: focus your mind on the one sentence (which I guess will be a good thing to be able to do if we are going to use mantras later), and recall something after having thought about something else for a while (just like writing in my DJ every morning).
The "be here now" was actually a bit easier and I weren't thinking as many stray thoughts as in "wandering mind". But it made me notice more details around me because I had to find something new to think about all the time. That means that I was more aware of my surrounding and I can see how, if I'm able to incorporate that into my life, I should be more likely to become lucid.
The mudra exercise really opened my eyes. I've always thought that the power of a mudra was in the association (when I meditate I hold my hands like this, and therefore, when I hold them like this my mind gets ready to meditate) but to simply ad a clenched fist into the mix, and really try to feel the difference made it clear that it was more than just that (though the feelings coming from a clenched fist could also be an association). Afterwards I tried with some other mudras I've seen on pictures and I couldn't feel a difference between them, but maybe it's possible if you are more "tuned in" to it.
With the mantras I had just about the same experience as with the mudras.
Hi Strit! Really good stuff here. You score 3 "Gold Stars" for this post and I will be taking 3 parts of it and pasting them into the lesson. So you earn 90 Hall points! Good that you connected with the idea of stereograms. The turning the page with out refocussing would be great practice, and some students may benifit from the idea. Yes, this type of vision is the way you do open eyed meditation normally. Intermidiate students should go back to all of lesson 1 and 2 and practice with open eyes and diffuse vision.
Oh my, I get embarrassed.