Samick's Dream Toga experiences

I have started doing dream yoga and building up my awareness yesterday. Almost all day I was more aware of sounds around me, because of that my inner dialog started stopping and it is much more calm now than before. When I woke up this morning the first thing I realized is that my inner dialog is really quite deppending on how it was before. I think it's a good thing. But a bad thing is I couldn't recall even one dream and I don't know why. I think that maybe my brain is not used to being aware. Any suggestions on how I can get back my recall?

Today I have done Listening to a Noisy World level 1. My house was quite at a time and at first I could hear only 4 different sounds at once but after a while I realized that many things spread more than one sound. I started hearing overtones of my computer like I have never did before and I also heard some high pitched sounds. :D It was an interesting experience I and will keep doing this exercise. At the end of the meditation I could seperate 7 or even more different sounds. Is it enougn for practice or do I need to find a noisier place? Or perhaps turning the TV on?

Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I tried doing the difused vision exercise. I looked in dark at my guitar with difused vision. Although it was dark I could see my guitar but not very clearly. When I started watching it it started to fade away. It fades away almost completely but when I start noticing it it just gets back to normal and I must start the exercise again. It's not easy to develop this skill. It's hard, as Sivason mentioned.

Didn't practice "Listening to a Noisy World" for whole week because of a busy week but I was listening to my footsteps while walking for almost whole week and today was the first day during this week when I had some time to practice meditation. I practiced "Listening to a Noisy World". When I practiced it last time it was difficult to listen to 3 sounds at once, but today it was much easier due to listening to my footsteps while walking I think. It is a really good way to train awareness.

Hi and welcome to the class! I think you have a noisy enough setting, if you need more then add a ticking clock to the room or something like that.

Have fun with this stuff, it leads to some amazing experiences.

During the day I have been trying to be here and now. It gave me an experience of how reality feels like. When your mind is not wandering around past or future you experience reality directly and see everything as if it's a very vivid dream. The awareness rises to a much higher level. It is easier to deal with life situtations in this kind of mind state because you look at everything in a more objective way. Everything becomes more interesting too. Especially the small things to which you don't give your attention usually.

True,,, but how to use it for dreaming? As you advance in states of awarness you will understnd more about what it is and feels like to just live through part of your day. This enhanced prosective is what warns you something is out of place in a dream. This skill leads to a dreamer who often closely observes the details of life, and often catches what is not normal (even a feeling) and takes off fully lucid to fly or transform. Well worth learning aside from how much it maxes out a dreamers DILD skills.

Not a long time ago I realized (while doing Vipassana meditation) that the difuse vision exercise is very helpful there. In that kind of meditation you need to just watch your breathing and don't control it. You do something very similar, or even the same thing with difuse vision exercise. And I noticed the progress of it when I didn't do it daily (only once a week), but have been practising the vipassana meditation daily for about two or three weeks. Just wanted to share this thought.

Thanks. It is a skill to develop, Simply observing without forcing anything.

I think I discovered a new state of mind. It's just ADA or more like Being Here and Now (it is different now than it was when I wrote about it earlier. It is even MORE dreamlike). The experience I get now is that for an example on schools days when I feel very sleepy (in fact, I didn't practiced these exercises because of it) I just be aware of that sleepiness and everything around me. It changes the way I feel the world and now I can enjoy sleepiness because it's a kind of altered state of conciousness. The best part of it is that I started remebering dreams on school days (which wasn't usual for me) and they got more vivid. I think that soon I should get some lucid dreams.

Here come the dreams! Good work.

After long holidays from meditation I am trying to get back my habit of doing it daily. It have been 4 days since I started doing the listening meditation again. Apparently, I even forgot how much it gives. After each meditation I feel much better, less tired, more relaxed and more aware of my surroundings. I noticed that it even helps with Here and Now exercise because the mind becomes more quite.

On school days I feel sleepy all day and doing meditation is harder and sometimes I fall into a near sleep state. In this case it is much much harder to concentrate on sounds. The longer I sit without moving the deeper I fall into that state. What should I do about it?

I think it is a good oppertunity to try WILD in a nap. If you are in a comfortable place, just let your mind listen with little effort until you are on the verge of sleep. Then try to observe yourself fall asleep. just watch to see how far you can get into this state before you loose all awareness.

Today doing the meditation was for some reason harder than usual. Probably because I did it later. I was more observing my thoughts than the sounds. There is a big stream of those this evening and I do not know why. But little by little my mind is easier to use.
The here and know exercise is much easier now. I learned how to do it without forcing. I understood that I already see, here and smell my suroundings, but am not aware of them. So instead of forcing my awareness outside, I just direct it. I see many beautiful things and feel more alive when I practice this. It's a really great exercise (my favourite :D).

I tried to attempt WILD during the nap several times. None of them were succesful, but all of them were interesting and worth trying. There is a stage where I lie on my bed being quite close to sleep and suddenly all sounds and external stimulus seem to be really really far. I can stay in that state for no more than 2 or 3 seconds. When I notice that I am there my mind searches for something to focus on and focuses on the external sounds and I am out of that state. Is it just a matter of experience or am I doing something wrong?

It really is just a matter of practice. It is hard to explain why, but the excercise 'diffuse vision' is used to help you past this stage. Read that lesson and the comments that follow. I hope it helps.

Today the meditation was a bit different. I understood why I can't listen to more than 2 sounds at a time. And holding those two sounds for some amount of time is not very easy. The cause of it is the internal dialog. It is hard to deal with. Whenever I try to listen to three sounds at a time my mind asks me "am I listening to three sounds now?" and of course the answer allways is "no I'm not" :D I must learn to listen without thinking. How can I acomplish that? Just use this kind of meditation and it will come with practice?

For a few days I have been practicing diffuse vision. It's the hardest thing of all I have tried. I allways do level of it. I can only hold my eyes relaxed for no more than two seconds. Maybe even less. But I will keep practicing it. It's interesting to play with your mind with these kinds of practices.

You are right about the internal monologue being the primary source of distractions. This is dealt with in other lessons, and you will get plenty of work in on that subject. For now you have noticed it, so just observe that it is an issue and keep trying the lessons. You are going to increase your mental capacity with these first lessons, then can tackle the internal voice issue before long.

I have a question, Sivason. Breathing is an interesting topic for me. So I want to find some information about yoga breathing. Do dream yogis practice any specific breathing techniques? And if yes, which ones?

Finally I feel the improvements of my listening meditations. I am able to enter more tranquil mind states. To say in other words - deeper. And now, when I am reading, I am able to listen to music at the same time and do not "lose" it. I like this. Soon I will start practicing "feeling the intense world" exercise.

In dream yoga you should learn all the basic breathing abilities practiced in other yoga. Specifically observing your natural breath enough that it helps quiet your mind, timing a mantra or counting with your breath, and slowing/controlling the rate and depth of breath.

I was reading this thread and remembered my experiences with that "dream trance". During the school years I used to sleep too little and often slept during the lessons. I would slip into that kind of trance where my mind would "make up" things for me. It's like visualization but you are not doing it. It just happens. I can't get there on my own intention. Just naturaly when I try to sleep during the lessons or in the car. First time I got there was a year before. I was just started being interested in lucid dreaming and exploring the mind and myself. It felt like a good way to gain knowledge about the subconcious mind and myself. But I couldn't get there. I am asking now how to achieve this?

Learn the skills I teach and it will build up the processing power of your brain's imagery section. I do not know any short cuts, but this class leads there.

Today I practiced listening meditation level 3. It was a long time since I tried it the last time. And I can say, doing it with eyes closed when sitting helped much. It was much easier to "switch" my awareness and put to silence my inner dialog. At first it was hard because I was in kind of tired and in inactive mind state but after about 15 minutes the awareness sort of "switched" to the outside from my head (if that makes sense). But now I am a bit tired from this although it wasn't a big effort to do this. I really feel the difference since starting practicing this stuff.
And one more thing. When I hear certain sounds (for example my father speaking louder than usually. This really annoys me) I feel a surge of negative emotions. I know that this can be changed but I don't really know how. I want to change this because I understand that it does me no good. Just tires me. So how do I change this?

Finally! A lucid dream!! Don't know how was it induced. Probably spontanous auto-suggestion in the morning while going to the bathroom :D So I was in my old appartment's kitchen. I realized I am dreaming for no aparent reason and suddendly the dream started to fade away. Then I focused my awareness on the dream and my body. Very similar, if not exactly, to the exercise Here and Now. The view became sharper and the dream was extremely stable. My body was tingling much more than it tingles when I focus on it in waking life. Later I floated a bit but couldn't control it. Once I am not on my feet, I keep flying upwards like a balloon with helium inside it. It was quite funny. The whole lucid event took about 1 minute. Later the dog attacked me when I went outside to fly some more. Then I lost lucidity and the dream collapsed. This part of the dream took place in a late REM sleep cycle. And I am certain that if I would not have lost lucidity the dream would have been much much longer. Indeppendently from the REM sleep cycles.
Anyway, this dream really gave me an insight into these worlds. The Here and Now exercises gives you clarity, awareness and stability in both worlds.

Congratulations! Nice to hear about a successful dream! As far as handling negative emotions, skip ahead and read the advanced lesson on suppressing emerging thought. It may help. You will be able to have much more control over how you feel as you progress with this sort of mental training,,, but it will take time.

I have a question about after-image. Today I just looked through a window at a bright color and when I closed my eyes I could see it very clearly. Almost as if in a dream. The shape and color of windows remained the same but the color of view behind the windows (which was only one color. I couldn't see any shapes except the shape of windows) started to change. It changed from a bright, sunny day to a dark night. At times the image started to become very blur and I thought I lost it, but soon I realised that I can focus the image as if with my physical eyes, but it a different manner. I don't really know how I did it. I kept doing this for a minute or two and then stopped because the image was not so clear as it was. So my question would be can this kind of practice help with visualization exercises and develope that portion of brain?

This type of image is caused by the photo chemicals in the eyes. It is different than true visualization. It is however a great way to start. You can always get this effect by standing in a dark room then while looking at where the light bulb is, suddenly switch it on and look at the light for about three seconds. Then shut the light back off. Now if you sit and close your eyes you see an image of the bulb. Try watching it as long as you can. The next time try to make it change color or shape.

Last night I tried some binaural beats. I listened to one from youtube (I think it was theta waves) for about 17-18 minutes. After about 10 minutes of listening (I didn't concentrated too much, the mind was mostly free) I started to enter and exit a strange state of mind, where the sound of the beats becomes more quite and I was more "inside myself". I could barely hear it. Just a little bit. The strange thing is that I was sitting upright, but with back support. I remember having similar experience when trying WILD nap. I would usually fall asleep when doing that. Do you think it's a good way to practice doing the WILD technique? What else can I do in that state?

I am not familiar with the binarual beats. I would simply try a small visualization trick when in that state. The easiest would be to imagine you feel yourself moving. If you do it right you will feel movement. Slow spinning or flying are examples.

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Originally Posted by sivason

I am not familiar with the binarual beats. I would simply try a small visualization trick when in that state. The easiest would be to imagine you feel yourself moving. If you do it right you will feel movement. Slow spinning or flying are examples.

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I'll try this the next time I experiment with binaural beats.

The practice of meditation and Here and Now exercise are getting better. I found a way to view everything from a different perspective. I can switch my focus to the outside of my head very easily in a relaxed manner. There is just a subtle thing which I do to achieve this. I can't describe it. The internal dialog in that "state" is more quite, the focus is more intense yet relaxed, the body is relaxed too. It is very good exercise to do while being in a boring class at school. You still listen to teacher but it isn't that boring anymore. And I felt that I can create an emotion of happiness when I'm in that state.

Yey! Another LD! This one was DILD I think (don't really remember how it started). It lasted about a minute. It wasn't very vivid. Everything seemed more "white". Probably because I was almost awake and light came through my eyelids. It was hard to maintain the dream and to not destroy it. But eventualy I did destroy it by shouting "Dream! Give me more lucidity!". After that I lifted up in the air and the dream became whiter and whiter.

Oh. And a day before I did really intense Here and Now practice. It may be a cause of it.

Wonderful! Great progress.

Today while meditating I started having some closed eye visuals. They weren't very vivid but were pretty distracting. It was harder to focus on sounds rather than those visuals because they were interesting. In this case should I stop focusing on sounds and start focusing on visuals or not?

I would say yes. If you get visuals take some time to watch them or even play with them. Someday, you will be able to do both at one time.

So, it was a long ago since the last time I wrote here. I stopped doing dream yoga for sometime. But I think I will get back to it. I have a few realisations to share here which came to me during the last year or so. About a year ago I started practicing Vipassana meditation. I practiced daily for about 9 months and all of a sudden I stopped. Maybe because of laziness or maybe because I ceased to see a point in this kind of practice. Although I do now, so it is the laziness.

The first realisation was that life truly IS only a dream and nothing more. We imagine ourselves, we imagine others, we imagine everything there is or ever will be. Well, maybe not everything. Maybe there is a bit of objective reality, but I cannot see it.

The other realisation is related to music. I am studying music at the moment and I think I understood how exactly great players do it. And how I must do it. Though there is a long way there I really want to get there.

So the main idea of the playing is that you must imagine what you want to hear before you hear it outside of your head and when playing you still must sing inside your head. In other words. During the time when playing you must be highly concentrated on the sound in your head. What sounds inside the head, sounds outside too. The whole playing proccess reminded me of Yoga. Or dream yoga to be specific. Because the only proccesses that are required for playing are only thoughts. Or mental sounds to be more specific. I came to a conclusion that playing an instrument is yoga too.

Then I thought to myself. Isn't how you control your sound is the same as you control your dream? Isn't how you control your sound or dream the way how you control your life - waking dream?

So here are my thoughts on dream yoga. More than after a year of break.

I agree. Playing music is a form of yoga, and dream control happens in the same way you create music.

After finding a way to stop insomnia by listening to audiobook for almost an hour before sleeping in almost total darkness. I implemented the dream yoga exercise (listening to the noisy world by listening to the tone, breathing and other sounds that come with the audio recording of book). I think this kind of practice may have something relevant with extreme vividness of the last night's dreams and a lucid dream as well. It was quite long. Lasted about 5 minutes of dream time. I also made it extremely stable with the touch exercise. In the dream I felt my dream body and took notice of gravity. But as soon as I jumped from a tall building I made the dream colapse. I actually thought I could handle the jump but unfortunately I didn't. These exercises are really powerful.

Thanks! I am glad they are helpful.

Last night I had another LD! And this makes me wonder about the induction of them. About that part of realizing you are in a dream. Before going to sleep I only intended to have a lucid dream. During the day I did a bit of non formal meditation of tactile senses of the body, but I doubt that this little practice would make a big difference. So I think that the intention caused the LD. I would like to hear your opinion, sivason, about this.

At first the LD was a very low level one. I started to be aware that I cannot fully understand where am I and who am I. The night before I read this post and during the dream I remembered to try to remeber where I was sleeping. Because of the vague memory of the dream I don't remember if I remembered right :D but it definately raised my awareness to the point where the dream colapsed. It is really hard to maintain stable LD. I need a lot of practice on this and would like to get some suggestions.

Practice is the key. Intention does make a huge difference. I can LD most nights if I focus a large amount of intention, but go days without one if left to chance.

Ever since my acid trip things about meditation has changed. Meditation helps me enter quite different states of conciousness and even lose myself sometimes. Afterwards I most often have visuals which are not very vivid but definately there. It sometimes seems that I can see the energy around me which was invisible until now and the auras of things show up. I just want to ask if this is normal? These things only happen when I actively let go of myself, my thoughts. Maybe certain brain filters come off. Anyway, should I be worried about this?

I think my meditation practice has gotten to the next level. About a month (or more, I can really say) ago I started meditating all the time. Started being mindfull all day long. Although it wasn't the deep state I would get if I meditated while sitting, but still, it was kind of deep. I practiced like that for a while and it really changed my life for the better. It was quite challenging to go through things I really wanted to run away from but I didn't stop. Well, I stopped a few times for a little while but then I saw that this way of living is better than that which I was living before. The thing is, I want to get back to lucid dreaming, but my sleep schedules are awful because of massive amount of work I need to do for school and music. My dream recall is almost non existent. I don't really know what to do. My awareness capaticity increased dramatically but it doesn't help with recall. Sometimes it seems that it even makes it worse. How can I regain my recall?