Thread: Whitedream's Yoga

Hi this is my Yoga work book. I am 17 years old and am very interested in deepening my spirituality. I have struggeled with addiction in the past and am now a recovering addict with a litte more than 1 year of sobrietey. My sobrietey depends upon my spiritualiy. If i am not sober i am likely to end up in a hospital or dead. Thus I am always looking for new ways to enchance my spiritual journey. I feel that this dream yoga has come into my life now as a way for me to grow and learn more about myself. I am excited to learn this practice as I currently practice yoga a few times a week and somtimes practice Bikram. I also have practiced meditaiton for many years but still consider myself a novice. ( I have adhd and 10 minutes of meditation somtimes seems like an hour) Thanks again Savasina for this wonderfull guide i look forward to working with you.

July 11th: Step 1 "visualize colors"

I had my first experience with this last night. I saw more moving shapes than colors. I have always noticed weird shapes and colors when i close my eyes and I have a limited ability to control these lights and shapes. It was strange and i saw a lot of moving and swaying colors. It was also difficult for me to be mindful of these colors and shapes because my mind wandered and i get lost in thought and forget what i am doing. I had just finished hooking up with a girl friend of mine and i was in an intense emotinoal state. Perhaps that had something to do with it. Still i felt more relaxed after being with hailey and found it easier to seee the colors and shapes than on previous nights

i still am gettin very distracted trying to focus on colors and find it painful to sit still alone with my thoughts

And now, we all know your full name.

or do you? perhaps its an alias

Glad you have started the class, spirituality can enhance life greatly. Your post on visualization will be pasted into the lesson and you earn 50 hall points.

thanks sivasiona but what do i do now?

It looks like you should start at Basic Skills 1. The basic skills are very useful and are needed to do the more advanced techniques involving dream control within an LD. There is enough material posted so far to take up weeks of your time.

"Level 1) Sit in a some what quiet setting, but not a place free of sound. At first just get comfortable and quickly with no special effort determine if any sounds are already being consciously perceived. Sit and just notice which noises you where aware of before paying attention. Now, with your eyes closed, casually explore each noise starting with the most obvious ones. You may first have been aware of the sounds of children playing, and traffic from a near by street. Listen to any of the obvious ones for a moment. Try to visualize in a casual and light manner, what each sound is. Now, your only goal in level 1 is to move around your environment not physically, but with your sense of hearing. You should acknowledge the sounds that were already obvious, then move your awareness of sound around. Try to pick up on the sounds you had not been fully aware of. They will be sounds that are not extremely quiet, and will be easy enough to find. You are simply trying to become aware of the fact that while the sounds were there the whole time, you did not consciously perceive them until you focused.
In an average attempt at this meditation I can often identify about 8 sounds my brain was choosing to ignore. Make a list in your head that tells you which noises you had clearly been aware of and any new sounds that you begin to perceive while meditating. You will find that at most times the world is full of sound we are choosing not to hear."



This is what I will be working on. I will continue after 5 experiences and journal enteries about this meditation

i had an experience with this for 10 minutes in the morning. My friend patrick and I were out in my backyard drinking tea, We tried this sensory meditation in which at first I just kept a very open mind to the world and tried to be aware of anything. I noticed some intresting patterns on the couch across from me. There were a lot of sounds going which was olverwheliming at times. Once i was centered and my head kinda relaxed and i got the weight of the shoulder feeling, i closed my eyes and took in all the sounds. Most prevelant of all was the owl who was doing his usual morning "whowhoo whoo whoo". He was accompinied by his friend the frantic chirping bird who sounded like a high pitched alarm clock. I notice the wind blowing through the trees which reminded me of a soft rain hitting a grassey field. Also i could hear the faint bantering of my mom and sister who were arguing about some skin disease in the kitchen to the right and above where i was sitting. At first all these sounds were simply absorbed and i listened to it as if it was a song. But soon my thoughts arose and i thought about sounds but eventually brought my self back to the sounds.

I really enjoy this type of meditation, thank you so much Savasona it is much more doable for me. Simply listening to my breath is just too dificult right now

Yeah, there are so many active or interesting meditations. The get real quite and stop thinking stuff is actually not a good place to start, but that seems to be what many people teach.

I did another 10 minutes today and listened to some of the sounds coming out my window. At first my body was very tense but i realized i needed to refocus and i took a deep breath and simply listened. If there was a mantra this would be it "i am listening". Still my mind wandered about. Still some of these thoughts seemed benificial. I remember thinking that perhaps i had over complicated my meditation. I seemed to have the conviction that every experience needed to be some deep thing. This false image of what meditation was would distract me and lead me to beat myself up because i felt i was not fullfilling this imaginary way of meditation. I came to know a better understand of "what is" and see that the things about me are what they are. I do not neccesarily need to expect them to be something or or something less than that.

Good, the wandering mind is a funny thing. Getting familiar with how the mind wanders is a great first step. No need to be to rigid or hard on yourself. The first thing is simply to experience your senses, which you are doing.

ii agree my mind really wandered today, i kept fantasizing about my girlfriend and then was like how the hell did i get to thinking about this. It is pretty difficult for me to stay focused and i even ended up checkin the timer for my meditation and leaving 30 seconds early. my initial reactions was to judge this as a bad meditation and beat myself up. but i have heard wise people say there is no good or bad, its just your experience. so i am going to try and get a taste of what that feels like and just accept where i am in my meditation

i meditated for 10 minutes closing my eyes while sitting crossleged on a meditation cushion. i listened to the sounds. At first my mind competed with the sounds of the outside world. In the morning, my mind is especially loud and makes my body feel rushed, and agitated. But as i quieted down and relaxed to the sounds of the world, i realized how much quiter the sounds outside were. How much simplier they were, and calmer then the chaos going on in my head. Everything seemed to just kinda come and go as it wanted. I still had the occasional distracted thought, but today i was more in tune than usual

Originally Posted by whitedreams

i meditated for 10 minutes closing my eyes while sitting crossleged on a meditation cushion. i listened to the sounds. At first my mind competed with the sounds of the outside world. In the morning, my mind is especially loud and makes my body feel rushed, and agitated. But as i quieted down and relaxed to the sounds of the world, i realized how much quiter the sounds outside were. How much simplier they were, and calmer then the chaos going on in my head. Everything seemed to just kinda come and go as it wanted. I still had the occasional distracted thought, but today i was more in tune than usual

Wonderful! that is good progress, good for you.

thank you i will keep doing the sound meditation until you give me the okay to advance.

I have been consistently meditating this week every morning for 10 minutes. I am also going to try and meditate before going to bed now for 10 minutes because i find it really difficult latley to fall asleep cause there just seems to be so much on my mind. As for this mornings meditation, i did ten minutes laying down on my bed. I closed my eyes and had some light meditation music going in the background. (http://www.radiosrichinmoy.org/8/heart-lotus-shindhu/) Great music, very peacefull, and free! it was difficult for me to relax. My mind is either focused on events that have happened, or are going to happen. I had this inpsired thought "allow yourself to relax" This resonated with me because my default seems to be stresed out mind on the go. It is foreign to me to feel peace and serenity. I also thought during my meditation that "i need a few more minutes in meditation" then i sort of scolded myself and though "your in the meditation right now you fool! why don't you just listen to the pretty music?" I do not know if laying down had anything to do with these extra thoughts but whatever it was, intresting experience

I did another 10 minutes this morning. And i was very relaxed yet very distracted by my thouhts. I got lost in a very vivid stream of thoughts and forgot that i was meditating. When i realized i was meditating i had to kick myself back into gear and say listen to the sounds. i then reclosed my eyes and heard the loud chirping of a bird outside my windown accompinied by the soft exhale of my breath. I was still for a few moments but soon got to thinking o i don't have enough time whats the point? i wasted to much time. blah blah blah time. But do i have a point? Do you think that i should perhaps increase the time spent meditating so it is not as big a deal if i wander in my head?

Spend as much time as you can and still enjoy the experience. I can now enjoy an hour or more, but itt should never become a responsabilty that is a burden. You are learrning every time, even when your mind wanders and you then catch it, that is part of the learning. You are doing fine. Keep coming back to the sound based excerise but go ahead and experiment with another skill for awhile. try one of the other versions or look at another lesson. Spend a week on the new stuff, and then try this one again. Good work.

thanks again sivason. This class has really helped me improve my meditation skills and i just wanted to remind you that your offering a great service. Your time is much appreciated

Last night my girlfriend slept over and we both sat down near cande lights and incencse and it kinda just happened. Nobody said anything but we both just went into meditation. we sat across from eachother on cushision. It was at times hard to not get caught up in the ego of it "oh i bet i can meditate longer than her" haha but i was able to pull myself back to the moment. As well as listening i was ultra aware of the dim light candle light that flickered upon her face. Her eyes seemed to glisten and i began to feeel her energy. We kinda of giggled and laughed at first just lookin at eachother without saying anything but as the meditation progressed the energy in the room really picked up. My eyes seemed to be magnetically attracted to her face and as i lookeed at her my vision started to shake. My eyes teared up and her face seemed to vibrate with the cande light. I grabbed her hands and could feel her energy traveling up my arms and in my body. After a while we kissed and it was like so orgasmic. I have never been so engulfed in the passion of a kiss. USualy il be thinkin about shit but this time i just felt her warm soft lips on mine and my hole body tingled. we kept kissing and i became short of breath. We eventually made our way into the bed but i think i will spare you the details haha. Anway really awesome mediation and just showed me that you can make meditation what ever you want

This is great. You had a moment free of that peskky wandering mind. It is very cool you actually felt her energy.

(Lesson 1.2)
"Try to visualize in a casual and light manner, what each sound"

completed 15 minutes of meditation sitting down on the cushion cross leged. i tried to listen to the sounds of my cat breathing, the birds chirping, the wind sailing by, but i was distracted by some of the sounds in my head. Oh i gotta do this on ebay, or oh now im gunna fantascize about sex, bla blah blah. but i seemed to bring my self back to the sounds gently with out to much repremending of my self. and i was able to do brief visulizaitons of the cars passing by, my cat meowing, amongst other things.