ThreeCat's Yoga Book

Hi, Sivason. As I mentioned in my introduction, I have a meditation practice in place but am looking for more techniques on increasing stability while WILDing and within the dream state. Also, wanting to avoid those silly moments where I point and shout "dream!" only to realize its only hypnagogic imagery and the dream has not yet stabilized.

I will probably start the homework today, after dishes. :D

P.S. I am still very interested in astral travel, and want to know lots more about this. Does this come into play in your class at all?

I've practiced the first bit of HW for two nights and thought I would post to record my thoughts.

I practiced awareness of individual sounds on my back porch. I live in an upstairs apartment near a small forest. On the other side of the tree barrier is a high speed highway.

First thing I noticed is the barrage of sounds. So many -- lots of different insects and frogs, some kids playing, a bird (lol), and howling sound of semi trucks from highway.

As you said, trying to maintain awareness of more than three or four of these at once is very challenging. Especially the bugs. They tend to overlap with each other -- crickets and cicadas.

Something else I noticed is that sounds are more than just one event. They rise and fall as a series of events, and we just stick a name on it and say "cricket." When in fact it is much more than that. Betrayal of language.

Also, some sounds only become apparent once they are removed from the setting. The air conditioner downstairs was running when I came out but I never noticed it until the compressor went off.

I am venturing to guess that this will assist me in LDing by allowing me to pay attention the native dream scenery -- such as possibly being able to carry on a conversation with a DC without losing awareness. Though I admit this is a shot in the dark :-)

Also, made me realize that we do not really hear music. Our mind makes up a story about it being good and bad but the song is just a stream of different neutral events with no particular value truly attributed to it. To be "aware" of a song must be a very strange thing and I am not sure it is possible for someone not Buddha? I said this to my wife today. She made a face and turned off the radio!

But this applies to the sounds of nature too, I think, but without lyrics "lying" and pretending the song is a coherent whole it is easier to noticed both the streamlike and but empty nature of sound.

I hope this isn't too pretentious! I do feel like I have learned something. It makes me think, as I write this, that there aren't "things" in a dream -- just dream, and the mind labels and reduces phenomena (or makes them) as it goes. Because it does seem a reduction (for music, dream, and all else) of something much greater and inexpressible. Thank you for reading all of this!

The main use of this lessonis simply to have you realize how you have been limiting your awareness your whole life. You will continue to do this to some extent as it is needed to allow focus. An important tool in trying to LD is simply awareness. This class is partly about super charging your awareness, and it starts with realizing just how unaware most humans are on average.

Thanks, sivason. Probably a little too much thinking on my part :) I will continue to post updates as I feel I have them.