Thread: MILD tips based on Tibetan Dream Yoga

Hello old friends!

I have not been very active on DV lately so I thought I would drop by and give some advice and lucid dreaming techniques that have been working well for me lately. It involves a book I read about Tibetan Dream Yoga called "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Rinpoche. There were a few buried threads about this topic, none of which really mentioned the info I wanted to share.

It involves something called "The Four Foundational Practices" or "The Cyclical Path of Dream Yoga". This is very similar to the popular "All Day Awareness" technique. It has four stages.

1) Changing Karmic Traces:


This involves recognizing the dream like nature of waking life as well as dream. It involves directing your awareness toward objects, events, and your body. The practice suggests that both are karmic traces (like snapshots of an experience, emotionally positive or negative) resolving themselves. In waking life the process is constrained by rational consciousness and the limitations of the physical world, strengthening the illusion that it is occurring "out there" instead of in your mind. Don't just think about it, FEEL it.

2) Removing Grasping and Aversion:


This directs awareness toward emotional responses to experiences. You can describe a emotion based on how something out there effects you "in here". However, if you were to look at it from the perspective that neither the experiencer or the experienced reality can exist without the other, you begin to see that the experience itself defines each in relation to each other. Therefore, the emotion has no real basis and is an illusion of dualism.

3) Strengthening Intention:


This is essentially the process of a MILD. It involves reviewing the day before you drift to sleep and strengthening your intent to lucid dream. I've modified a few mantras from the book and found them to be very helpful for me. The closest translation to the traditional mantra is "Sending a wish...". My modified version is more like: "Dear guides, Higher Self, Universal Spirit, I am open to your guidance... Hear me sending this wish to discover my true nature though dream. I am a clear receiver." I don't just say it, I say it slowly and feel each word. I imagine its meaning and charge it emotionally. Additionally, I visualize myself becoming aware in the dream by doing a reality check. I feel the one of a kind feeling of excitement that always accompanies it.

Blind Horse, Lame Rider


This is a example from the book about how a normal person falls asleep. The mind (crippled person) is carried about chaotically upon the karmic traces (blind horse) while falling asleep. The practitioner of dream yoga has seen through the illusion of the karmic traces and emotions and is centered upon the blind horse. He is not flailing about while drifting to sleep but centered and aware of himself.

4) Cultivating Memory and Joyful Effort:


This involves recording the lucid dreams you experience (Dream Journal!). Be joyful of your success! It involves making the intention to continue with the practice for the new day. Here you can see how it becomes a cyclical path, merging with the first tenet.

There is much more to the practice but that bit is what I have found particularly useful. One last thing, it talks about a text called "The Mother Tantra" which describes many beautiful examples to help understand the illusory nature of reality.

"Dream is like a moon reflected in many different waters, the pond, the well, the sea- and in many different windows in a town, and in many different crystals. The moon is not multiplying. There is only one moon, just as the many objects of the dream are of one essence."

Alright that's about all I wanted to share guys, I hope you found this enjoyable or beneficial to you on your path! I will leave you with one last quote from the book ( it is full of them)

"When we cease to exist, the world we make dissolves, not the world that other people inhabit."

-Namaste