Hello

[Robert]

Hello, Just wanted to say Hi to everyone and wow what a great site. Looks like a lot of great information, I'll be doing a lot of reading. I'm intersted in LD because of what Ken Wilber says about it. That it is helpful for development and aiding in the dying process. Any KW fans here ? Robert

[irishcream]

Hi, welcome to the board! I've not heard of this Ken Wilberton of whom you speak. Perhaps you could give us all some information? I definitely agree that lucid dreaming can help with certain areas of development.

[eXistenZ]

Hi Robert, Welcome. I'm a newbie too. It's interesting from how many different paths we're gathering here: I'm here after reading Castaneda's and LaBerge's books, you're here due to Ken Wilber thoughts, many other start from othe experience. This remembers me the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" by Spielberg. The personages there had a recurrent dreams and visions in common about a mountain that at the end was revealed to be the meeting point with extra-terrestrial being. A sort of communion hidden to the awarenss of the subjects themselves. Enjoy the forum! eXistenZ

[Robert]

Just wanted to drop some info about Ken Wilber's work. http://www.integralnaked.com is a great site with audio and video clips and http://www.kenwilber.com is the official site. His writing is about how east and west can complement each other and why they do essentially because the west left it's mystical tradition behind. Anyway, on Kosmic Consciousness, a program of his, he talks about how enlightenment has always been described as an awakening, to be fully awake. And this is precisely what the Buddha realized 24-7. To be fully awake through the three bodies, the gross ( the one we are always awake in ), the subtle, (the dream state), and the Causal ( the void stateless/state) is an extremely helpful thing. Enlightenment or unburdenment is right around the corner.....And apparently, because of what we know of the Tibetan book of the Dead, the process of dying and falling asleep are not so different. So when you die, you will see all sorts of things real or projected and you will most likely get pulled into a dream-like state and not be lucid as you die. So, what he's saying is that if you can become lucid enough in your dreams, you can maybe be more lucid as you die and thus may have more of a say about how the next 'dream' unfolds and you may incarnate again or whatever, and at least fear about dying drops off considerable from what we know.....I know this is a bit out there, but it makes sense to me. The other thing is development. Again, what lucid dreaming is strengthening is the witness. You already have the witness right now in your own consciousness if you think about it. So, in meditation you watch your thoughts, your emotions, whatever arises in your own awareness, you are witnessing. As you fall asleep and another world arises in your consciousness if you can witness it, you realize...... who is the watcher of this? How is it that you can be witnessing your dream if you are alseep, who is it that is really witnessing this dream? I'll wrap it up with what they call http://www.spiraldynamics.com/ where it became codified that if you know where you are from you will know pretty much where you are going. So again by having new insights or witnessing your mind and behaviour you have a better chance of moving up the evolutionary scale of development, and that is a good thing. Anyway, I think all the reasons for LD are valid, and this is another that can be added to the list and if this is what I and others think that it is, it is very important. I think we all know the more choices we have the options we have and the more power we have. And power can be used for the benefit of all beings. My personal feeling is that if LD aided people in realizing a tenth of what the buddha realized the whole of the world could really be an Eden and not something to believe in or some place we hope we go to when we die, but to make paradise on earth, while we are alive. I think the thing I like about his writing is that it's not a cold lifeless fish. Part if his philosophy is always uniting the body and the mind, the one with the many, dancing with the masculine and feminine, going beyond our current level of humaness however that creative process unfolds. Okay, now I got some reading to do..........sheeez!!!!!!