Nazrax' Dream Yoga Workbook

I've been working on the lessons from this class for the last few weeks and figured it was probably time to start a workbook.

So, why am I here? I've been working on lucid dreaming on and off for about 7 years now, and I've had only minimal success. I figure that it's time to try something "deeper" than just this and that technique.

Basic 1, sound, level 1 is coming fairly easily now. I haven't been able to stretch myself very far with level 2, but I know it'll come in time. Level 3 is going well - I usually practice it when I walk the dog at night, and I can hear the crickets, the traffic, and my footfalls, and I sometimes add in something else, like rubbing my fingers. The last couple of times, I've tossed in diffuse vision as well, and the feeling of "connectedness" is great.

Basic 1, touch, levels 1, 4, and 5 are going well. For some reason, I keep forgetting 2 and 3 ... Still haven't felt gravity yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I haven't picked up any hard candies for version 3 yet.

Basic 2, diffuse vision, is going well. As with some of the other students, I've always been very good at "Magic Eye" images, so focusing beyond a given object is second nature to me. I think I finally figured out how to actually relax the focusing muscles a day or two ago, and diffuse vision has worked much better since then. Last night, I was practicing with some large square tiles in front of me and finally had them go "trippy", with many of the grout lines vanishing and reappearing. I don't watch TV, but I try to take opportunities as they arise to look to the side of whatever it is I'm actually watching and observe it diffusely.

I haven't moved onto the rest of Basic 2 yet.

I started doing some of the visualization training yesterday. As with a couple of the other students, I don't get colors, only blobs of grey. By thinking about different objects, I found I had some control over the blobs. I can usually form a single point-down triangle, and with some effort I can get a point-up triangle. Rectangles are harder, squares harder still, and I can't get anything circular.

I had an odd experience last night after I'd been practicing visualization+diffuse vision in bed. I'd been on my back, working on shapes, and when I rolled onto my side I saw what looked like a starfield - many many tiny points of light. I've never seen anything like it before. I fell asleep before I had a chance to play with it, though.

So, a couple of observations:

With diffuse vision, I've realized that I can spread my awareness side-to-side much more easily than up-and-down. I'm trying to remedy that ...

With visualization, I've realized that I'm not messing with the blobs; instead, I'm almost "drawing" on top of them. When I first started messing with lines, I could only put them straight across the center of my vision; but then I found that I could "flip" the lines into a shape. I could lay down a + and then "flip" it into a square; or I could create an X and flip it into a diamond. Once I could lay down 3 lines at once, I could create a * and flip it into a hexagon. As I've continued messing with them, I can now draw outlines without the help of "flipping." My current goal is to make the shapes larger - right now, it seems I can only 'draw' where my eyes are pointing and not off to the side.

With sensory awareness, I think I've finally started to notice gravity. I picked up a heavy object in one hand and started to stretch out my other hand to steady it, and I realized that I could feel that feeling of "weight" in both arms, not just the one with the heavy thing. I haven't delved much further into this yet, though I look forward to doing so.

I finally picked up a big pack of mints. So far, I've only done level 1, and it went well - while I certainly haven't tried to focus on candies before, I've always been one to suck candy until it's gone without biting on it. I hope that will help as I move further into it.

I've let my practice slip a bit, but I'm still trying to work on it. I actually became aware of the messed-up gravity in my dream, and it made me feel so disoriented that I felt like I was about to fall over!