ImJB's dream yoga workbook

Hi everyone,

As you guessed I intend for this to be my workbook to progress through these brilliant dream yoga lessons Sivason has been kind enough to publish

The spiritual side of LDing really appeals to me which is why I am here and not in the general LDing section of this site

My immediate goals
- improve my dream recall (currently 1-2 a night on average)
- improve dream vividness (I'd like to watch a sunset in my dream)
- get lucid (achieved this 2 ten years ago when I first looked into LDing so I know I can do it! :cheeky:)

Loooong term
- meet my dream guide
- follow the rabbit hole

Cheers
John

In parallel with the meditation practises presented by sivason here I have started practising the zhine meditation presented in the book TYODAS. Which consists at the first stage of focusing on the Tibetan A - in particular a version with the traditional colour boundaries. I've attached the image I use.

As a beginner it is not easy to clear my mind but after about 5-10 mins I notice a distinct change in my vision. The colours and the visual phenomenon they generate are really amazing. Personally I even feel as though the image starts to float, as in it doesn't remain motionless. This could be the small movements of my body as I breathe but the affect becomes very noticeable as my concentration increases.
I would love to know whether this visual phenomenon I notice from the colour borders is intentional and perhaps a sign of good practise.

Certainly at those moments where the image is most vivid my mind is most clear, however the act of noticing this of course draws my attention away from the image.

My intention is to mix up this meditation with those sivason presents. For now I'll spend a few days on this before switching.


Attachment 5995

I am here to help, as you need it. Sounds like you are having good luck with visualization so far. Watching a sunset is very realist as a goal. I often will stop in an LD and look at amazing skies. The stars can be fantastic, like out of a sci-fi fantasy, so can the sunsets.

Actually Sivason, I would like to ask about dream signs.
I've mentioned in a few posts that my dream recall has improved a lot in the last 2 weeks. Im recalling 2-3 dreams per night at the moment. Usually waking after each one. (This being my personal sign of encouragement).

How general would you recommend I be with dream signs?

At the moment the most common dream signs I noticed are basically the main people in my life and sports that I really like and often watch. To be honest I probably started out looking for things that are more 'unique' or specific.

My (beautiful) and sadly deceased Mum is in many of my dreams - she is a dream sign that I intend to use as I would love my LD journey to involve me being able to emotionally connect with her memory. The sport dream signs are useful but RCing everytime I see my girlfriend (that I live with) could become very time consuming!!

I do not think you could successfully use something like your girlfriend. It is only things that appear in your dreams, but only occasional in life that work best. Some people look at it different. They think if they RC every time they see their school bus, then it will happen in dreams. This is not any different than RC in general. With me I use things that happen in dreams and rarely in life. I do this by power of suggestion. I stop in a meditative state and remind myself "such and such will mean I am dreaming." With me I spent many years in school. I do not have school work in my life at all IRL. So I have programmed a response to any school related subject. If I find myself unsure which class to go to next, this auto-suggestion kicks in and I realize I am dreaming. My father passed away, and he is one of my dream signs.

Actually school is a good one for me also and come to think it I did dream I was taking an exam last week. Thank you for the suggestion. How do you typically 'set' these dream signs? Simply through auto suggestion when you think of them day to day?

Today's workbook entry:

I am currently on a work trip which has given me a huge amount of free time (no home duties day to day) to concentrate on my practise.

Today I sat for my focus meditation practise twice, for about 15 mins each. My only real difficulty with spending this amount of time at present is actually getting a comfortable posture. I am not that flexible so any lotus form is out the question. Naturally it's difficult to see progress in a few days but I'm am easily sitting through 15mins. Lots of mind wandering but I've got no doubt patience will pay off. For now I'm concentrating on consistency day to day before I increase sitting time.

I've been incorporating Sivasons sound awareness as I move through the day and at the end of my meditations. It is striking how many sounds your mind ignores. Staying in a hotel doesn't help this practise because it's a somewhat stale noise environment. Typically I can notice a few hums, some traffic but I will try do this practise outside when I get back home. An interesting aspect I was focusing on today was 'splitting' the sounds I could hear. Many of the hums I could hear were really multiple sounds/vibrations. Attempting to focusing on each component as individual sounds was interesting.

I have remained very interested in the visualisation excesses and even a couple of days has seen some slight improvements. I have been concentrating on visualise colours - sticking to the primaries to simplify/stream line the excersise. I continue to have success being able to generate blotchy colour fields as I move intention between colours. Using mental imagery like grassy field/ocean/red wine really helps initiate the colour and from them I can hold it. I do find if I hold a colour for a long time it becomes muuuch harder to switch. I can really only accomplish these exercise in the dark or with a shirt over my eyes as otherwise the colours are drowned by light pollution coming through my eyelids.

Making shapes is challenging and apart from flashes are difficult to really hold beyond vague images. That said I had some success tonight imagining a flame. Because the outline of the flame is less defined it blends well with the blotchy nature of the field of vision in my mind. Best way to describe would be like the negative of a picture. Again I found I could switch the flame between red blue and green fairly comfortably (low resolution image I'll add again). Also tried to imagine that my view of the candle was moving up and down the 'stem' of the candle being sure not to move my eyes. This isn't easy but I could get a sense of this and will continue to try expand on this idea.


Till next time
JB

Great job on the flame! The comparison to a film negative is a good one. This form of visualization creates the images in just that manner, but gets more and more intense. Eventually becoming something totally new and hard to explain. Keep it up, you are going about it correctly.

I set my dream signs entirely through auto-suggestion.

Lotus position is a bit silly if you ask me. I have often got on the nerve of other serious yoga instructors, because I have 100% set aside tradition and go with intuition now. Arrogant, I am sure they think, but I am fulfilled in my path, so to each their own. I like to encourage comfort. A simple cross legged position with a comfortabley held posture is great. I do not think a rigid completely upright posture is called for,,, that is unless you like being stared at (lol, some do).

As I mentioned I have been loosely incorporating the practise in the book TYODAS.

Last night (had my first LD!) I was visualising the first of the main practise in the book as I went to sleep. Visualising a red lotus at the throat chakra with a Tibetan A.

Lath night was remarkable for the colour red I was able to generate. Whether or not it was because I managed to hold the visualisation into a 'dreamy' state or not I don't know, but some of the red colour I generated was very vivid. Legitimate blood red. I got a bit excited at this point and either a) over thought it and lost concentration or b) woke myself up but in any case I lost it and couldn't get it back.

So My question would be - do ppls colour visualisation vividness or control often change moving into sleep?

And thanks again for the input. Cross legged is how I've been doing it. I'd like to this that it is helping my dreaming very much

Your brain is better at creating visuals the more relaxed your waking mind becomes. Meditation can recreate this state, as can a half sleep.

Well it's been a while between drinks here. Thankfully that isn't because I haven't been around DV.

Over the last month the biggest difference between my dream practise to now has been my slow and steady incorporation of vipassana meditation into my life. Whilst it's fair to say the period through Xmas the NYE meant daily practise slowed to weekly practise (too much partying!) but now I'm back on the bike! Also, I've been continuing to fine tune my personal approach to lucid dreaming.

Truth be told I probably swung toward 'over-mantraing' for MILD not long after my last post whilst a lot of my reading was on mindfulness mediation so I've had a bit less time here studying dream yoga. That said I've come a bit full circle.

I think personally I find the regular mantra'ing of the MILD approach a bit mechanical. Instead I believe that with mantras I get more out of quality than quantity. I think that mantras when I RC and/or daydream are/will be enough for me.

What's more when I fall asleep I prefer to think of 'intention setting' than repeating mantras (more is less?). I've found lately that I've been enjoying much more visualisation going to sleep rather than mantras. As such apart from general colour visualisation practise I use e dream yoga practises.....that being the red lotus throat chakra for example on going to sleep.

If I'm honest I wouldn't attribute any LD progress specifically the he dream yoga chakra practises yet, however I do solidly believe you cannot ignore 1000s of years of practise so I think I will stick with them for now. Either way I figure my association of progress with them will subconsciously do the trick anyway?

It's a bit of a rant but Sivasson if you are about I would very much appreciate your thoughts on my reflections above and the following if possible (thanks!)

- as mentioned I am practising vipassana meditation. Do you think this can/does/will (?) affect my lucid dreaming ability positively or negatively versus other meditation varieties? I note that the book TYODandS focuses specifically on external objects (like a flame or Tibetan A) - stating that dream is external so that should be the practitioners focus

- do you have a view on isochronic/brainwave entrainment tracks? I have actually been using a couple for the last couple of weeks during my meditation and found them to be effective.

Really appreciate your time....cheers
John

Sorry for the time it has taken to get to this. I have been gone for awhile. Vipassana should be very effective in building the heightened awareness needed. See if you can spot how some of the lessons I teach are forms with similar aspects to that one.

Mantras can be effective in two ways. The simple repetitive nature of them can cause the thought to echo through your mind, and this can effect the thoughts you have while dreaming. The other is to keep a small bit of waking awareness while you allow your body to drift to sleep. Quality is always better than quantity. To many Buddhist and Hindus loose awareness of what the mantra means or is for, and they simply become repetitive noise machines. As far as keeping awareness, this can be done just as well with the type of visualization you are using.

I am not at all offended or concerned with your logic about traditional teachings. My material is based on very traditional teachings, but how would you know that. There is a good rationality to learning from a clearly defined chain of tradition (and that is not something I offer, as I rejected that path lifetimes ago, in favor of intuition based seeking.)