Image Streaming and Meditation

[Roller]

I was wondering what people thought about Image Streaming and Meditation as aids in lucid dreaming... I have very vivid dreams, but for some reason just can not seem to be able to do a reality check in a dream and therefore become lucid, and so I have decided to pursue WILD (yes, I know it's harder). One of the problems I have is that I find it difficult to have vivid HI, and that I loose concentration... I also have difficulty in the 'crossing over' or stepping into a dream. What I've started to do is meditate more frequently, using the 3rd eye meditation and an astral meditation. I'm not really into that stuff, but I figure that if I meditate and imagine myself flying around etc it'll make it easier for me to handle getting lucid. The Image Streaming thing is basically about improving your mind's eye etc, which I would like to do as I think it would help a bit when I WILD. If anyone uses any of these things to help improve their LD's or 'practice' them or whatever, I'd like to know what you do and what (if any) progress you made, or if it helped you. I'll see how I go with it, and I might even write a tutorial or something.

[Leo Volont]

Dear Roller, I think it is largely overemphasized that Lucidity is gained through some form of mental discernment – I frankly do not think it true. I think Lucidity is the result of a combination of two factors – the suggestion to become Lucid and having a great surge of Consciousness Energy which can support Lucidity. Any of us who have had weak or borderline lucid dreams know that all of the mental discernment in the world can hold that intense state of consciousness which we designate as Full Lucidity. But when people do become Lucid, the Suggestion they had so often practiced presents them with some situational discernment to trigger the Lucidity. Yet if we have a long history of Lucidity, then we must have record of instances where we had no situational discernment at all in order to trigger Lucidity beyond the simple perception of the increase in vividness that comes with a Lucid Dream. Lucid Dreams become recognizable as Lucid Dreams because of their inherent Intensity. So, anyway, with your experience of having Big Dreams and Intense Psychic/Mental States, you are well pass half way to Lucidity. You might need to ratchet up waking suggestions that you attain to Lucidity in your Dream State. For instance, I have a sports watch that has a Count Down and Repeat Timer which can be set to beep every 10 or 20 minutes (or whatever). Let that run all day long and every time it goes off allow yourself to feel regret that you have not attained Lucidity. Go over in your mind how you would put Lucidity to work in a positive way to make you a better Soul. Your own personal Dream Workshop will then go to work creating for you a Lucid Dream. It takes awhile. Lucid Dreams must be written much like a Computer Program that has to provide for various choices that will be made. Often when Lucidity has come to me, I have used it first in order to stop the ordinary dream activities and to leave whatever Dream Scene I had presently been in, in order to begin Dream Meditation (an old Dream Guru of mine once said that a few seconds of Dream Meditation are worth a thousand hours of waking Meditation, and he was right) and then Levitate away, up to a high altitude. I learned over time, that the Dream Mind will then allow me to lose altitude and descend into a Dream Scene that was especially designed to engage the advantages of Lucidity. Some of these dreams have been my most important dreams. But one must remember to give the Dream Mind its due. Make the choices that seem appropriate to the context of the Lucid Dream as presented. Often Dreamers will begin a campaign of total control, destroying all the preparations that the Dream Mind had put into these carefully constructed dreams. Of course, the Dreams are not wasted – they can be put into storage and used later, if they are still psychologically appropriate. But the Dream Mind is frustrated by Lucid Dreamers who destroy all they encounter with their over-control – their control ‘ober allas’. We know our Dream Mind is rebelling against this over control when we have False Awakenings – when our Dream Mind runs programs designed to lure us back into ordinary dreaming, to make us suppose we are awake so that we will relinquish our destructive control. Every Lucid Dream that ends in a False Awakening is an indication that we went outside of some predetermined boundaries established for our Lucid Dream. We had taken a rare instance of a spike in consciousness energy that alone can provide for and account for every instance of Lucid Dreaming, and had wasted the opportunity… missed the window… took the ball out of play… just plain ol’ screwed up. Anyway, that was just a few thoughts. I’m sure you will do fine. Oh, and since you are into power Meditations, I will leave you with a tip from an old Kundalini Yoga Master – the Meditation which holds the greatest balance between ease of performance and intensity of result is the “One to Twentyfour Count”. Count from 1 to 24 focusing on the bones of the Spinal Column, starting with your tail bone and going up to the swivel point in your skull. Do it three or four times and you will feel a distinctive rise in your Kundalini Energy. Perhaps this energy can help you to attain to Lucidity. But spikes in the intensity of this Consciousness Energy are difficult to account for. Typically they present in two quite different ways: in the first we have a spike of energy because of exceptionally good health; but more typically we have the second way in which a collapse in the health has released a great deal of energy from the body which is channeled into use as psychic energy. Remember, that the strongest experiences are Near Death Experiences. Remember that the strongest Experiences are typically recorded by Ascetics who by sleep deprivation, fasting and borderline starvation, and bodily mortifications are effectively destroying their physical bodies in order to release energies sufficient to support a powerful Visionary Experience. I would recommend the First Way, though the power peaks will be only just above Threshold and perhaps far between. But in order to exploit the Second Way, one needs to remember that by using one’s Body’s Residual Good Health as a Battery to supply for an intense Psychic Life, we can use it only by running it down, and we can do that only one too many times until permanent damage is done and a full health can no longer be re-attained. Most of the Great Visionaries of the Second Path died very young. The only thing that can be said for them, then, is that there have been no Great Visionaries of the First Path.

[Roller]

Hey cheers for that longer than normal reply mate... always good to hear people's ideas. Basically I've had four LD's so far, none longer than a few seconds. I've been working through different methods and I have decided to try and... 'train' my mind through meditation etc... nothing too serious, though. I've got a watch that chimes every hour and I do reality checks during the day each time it happens to try and remind myself... it doesn't seem to be working yet, but I will stick at it and see how that goes. BTW I tried some of that 'Image streaming' stuff this arfternoon, and it went quite well. I laid back on the floor with my legs resting on my bed (from a topic in here, I'll try and find the link) because it drains the blood to your head and this seems to give more vivid imagery. I laid back and shut my eyes, then pictured a few scenes in my mind's eye and just let my mind wonder, whilst narrating the images to myself. It's kind of just like watching the HI you get before you fall asleep or when you WILD, except you are more conscious and kind of controlling them. Basically all I want to do is improve my mind's eye and be able to have better HI when I do WILD. Well it was kinda fun, but I need to improve on it... I think after a while I kind of ended up asleep fro maybe five mins, but the imagery was still strong. When I finished I felt surprisingly refreshed for some reason... it was great. I tried it again later on after dinner but it wasn't as good. Well I guess I might as well let people know how things go with it or something... feel free to let me know what your ideas on these kind of... subtler ways of helping with lucidity are.

[Leo Volont]

With 4 nibbles at Lucid Dreaming already, I'm sure you will do quite well overall. Oh, and regarding Meditation... do you have much of a background in such things? Are there any groups to which you are affiliated, favorite books, favorite Mantras, do you have any Spiritual Heroes or favorite Saints? You know, I personally think that there is a great deal of help in all of this 'stuff' that could come to us from those on 'the other side'. The Permanent Principalities of Heaven, who from the Higher Planes we call Angels and from the lower we know as Demons, and then there are those once human who by heroic disciplines had established themselves as powers in the Spiritual World, whom we refer to as Saints. To get an Angel or a Saint in one's corner.. to achieve that Spiritual Patronage can go a long way toward assuring one's Spiritual Development. And it need not be the the greatest Angel or Saint, as almost anyone or anything there already would be significantly better than nothing; of course to exclude the Demons who would only play cat and mouse with you.

[Barbizzle]

I meditate beofre I go to bed and suggest to myslef that I will beocme lcudi in my dreams. It sems to work, why dont you try it out?

[eccentric]

Leo, there was some interesting stuff in that first post of yours. I really like the idea of feeling regret that you haven't gained lucidity every once in a while even though you're awake, that's funny, but it makes sense. I'm going to play with that and see if I can't get it to work. What religion are you? You have a lot of very dogmatic ideas about spirituality. And for meditation, you don't have to have any visualizations or mantras. In zen, the most they do is count and follow the breath. Go to http://wildmind.org and check out the realaudio files they have. If visualization is your thing, though, it works great! Still check the wildmind website out, it has some really good ideas. Originally posted by Roller When I finished I felt surprisingly refreshed for some reason... it was great. Meditation does that. I think that's because you relax and heal a bit, but I'm not really sure. As for summoning magic energy, well, whatever blows your skirt up. I personally believe its placibo, but there's a reason the medical field has to work so hard to discern whether an effect is placibo or not: placibo works.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by eccentric Leo, there was some interesting stuff in that first post of yours. I really like the idea of feeling regret that you haven't gained lucidity every once in a while even though you're awake, that's funny, but it makes sense. I'm going to play with that and see if I can't get it to work. What religion are you? You have a lot of very dogmatic ideas about spirituality. And for meditation, you don't have to have any visualizations or mantras. In zen, the most they do is count and follow the breath. Go to http://wildmind.org and check out the realaudio files they have. If visualization is your thing, though, it works great! Still check the wildmind website out, it has some really good ideas. Meditation does that. I think that's because you relax and heal a bit, but I'm not really sure. As for summoning magic energy, well, whatever blows your skirt up. I personally believe its placibo, but there's a reason the medical field has to work so hard to discern whether an effect is placibo or not: placibo works. So what is wrong with Placebo? They've done studies on the effectiveness of Placebo, and there are few things as effective as Placebo when it is firing on all 8 cylinders. Yes, Placebo will only work for about 72 hours before it wears down, but try finding a drug that will work for 72 hours. But the Yoga stuff I speak about must go beyond Placebo, since they maintain beyond the 72 hour cutoff point. Also, if there is something that is effective, but effective only because of the power of suggestion, which many people would call 'placebo', then, SO WHAT!?... as long as it is effective. We live in the milieu of a Scientific Mentality that would throw away the Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, and the Philospher's Stone simply because they could not explain it with physical models bearly beyond the level of Newton who could not have explained how a toaster worked. I'm not all that 'Dogmatic' about spirituality. I'm rather quite eclectic about it. I'm presently a Marian Catholic, but I bring much from Indic Civilization and the Sanskrit Philosophies. My Moral Models bow much to the Truths of Zoroastrianism. I think it is no accident that the Original Civilizations and Religions were Goddess Religions, and see the Virgin Mary of the Catholics as a Ressurrection of the Goddess Religions for a New Civilization. What you may think of as Dogmaticism is a certainty that I have attained through experience and through meeting with repeated concensus in my Studies. It is easy for a young person who knows nothing and pretends to know nothing to be entirely free of Dogmaticism. But this is what KNOWING is all about. Yes, yes, I know about the Taoists who attacked all the reputable and positive Philosophical Schools in China by asserting that "Those who claim to know, know nothing". Now think about it. Could there ever be a more destructive assertion than such an attack on Positive Knowledge? What is it but a sheer advocacy for Ignorance than to belittle the Attainment of Knowledge and Wisdom. Indeed, find a Taoist and you have gone quite far enough, if you were looking for a worthy recipient for a horse whipping.

[Roller]

In regards to what kind of background I have on meditation... well I've done it off and on for the last two years, and I loosely follow various Buddhist techniques when doing so. The slight buzz I felt yesterday after the Image Streaming execise was different to that I usually feel after meditation, it was more uplifting and bright... hard to explain. Um this isn't meant to be a thread arguing whether something is a placebo or not, or about religious attributes that can be attatched to either thing. I am simply trying with Meditation and this Image Streaming execise to see if it helps me with my Lucid Dreaming. If you have any tips, or want to know something or add something then let me know, but try and keep on the thread topic ok? As for this Image Streaming thing... it seems to basically be allowing yourself to see Hypnogagic imagery, without taking yourself further into a LD. What is interesting about it is that you are meant to dictate what you see into a tape recorder or something of the sort... The idea behind it is that you let your mind present you with all these random images, and narrate them to tape, then play the tape back to find out what you saw... It's basically just concentrating on the Hypnogagic Imagery itself. I'm definatley doing more of it because I find it hard to visualise things in my mind's eye... Like I said before, I will try and keep you updated for those that are interested.

[Leo Volont]

Dear Roller, Have you tried that one Meditation exercise I told you about -- the 1 to 24 Count up your Spine. You can do it fairly quickly, and you only need to do it three times, and that will raise the subtle Kundalini up to your Agna Chakra. There is another trick that I developed because I could never really find out what the Buddhist One Finger exercise was, but in experimenting around I found that by twiddling the thumbs -- twirling the thumbs -- right thumb counterclockwise and left thumb clockwise, for just a minute or so, when you stop, the subtle Kundalini Energy centers in the spine and rises up. I think that the Thumb Nadis are in the Central Channel and that by exercising the Central Nadi Channel at the thumbs, it is exercised everywhere else as well. But the energy only stops after you STOP the exercise, so don't twirl your thumbs for a couple of hours... that would be to miss the point.

[Roller]

Hey yeah I tried the spine meditation a little bit, but then got disturbed. You're right though, it does feel really good! I'm going to try doing more of it, and I want to look up other such methods of meditation, mainly out of pure interest. I do one technique at the moment where by you focus on you nose as you breathe, then your 3rd eye, then your scalp, then your mind and then tke that energy down into your chest... its quite good.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Roller Hey yeah I tried the spine meditation a little bit, but then got disturbed. You're right though, it does feel really good! I'm going to try doing more of it, and I want to look up other such methods of meditation, mainly out of pure interest. I do one technique at the moment where by you focus on you nose as you breathe, then your 3rd eye, then your scalp, then your mind and then tke that energy down into your chest... its quite good. Oh, yeah, regarding all of these Kundalini Exercises... if you feel it at all, then you've done enough for the evening. If you get lightness of head or a headache, then take it back down and let it recide in the tailbone for a few weeks, and keep it there. There's a good visualization for taking the Energy down -- get a glass of cold water and take a few gulps, and visualize the energy following the swallows all the way down to the tailbone. Even if you do not get a headache, its a good idea to learn how to pull the Energy Down... its sort of "safety-net" practice when working with the Kundalini. And keep this in mind if you have any mysterious fevers in the near future -- the energy can manifest as heat, which means that you favored the right side of your spine. Take it down and move it over to the left and that will bring your fever down almost instantaneously.