yschachter:

I read this, and the question immediately arose for me "Are you conscious of being conscious?" and it sent me off on a little 30 second causal state adventure. I think I'll keep using that question to spark myself.

Thank you.

btw, (not sure if you're a lucid dreamer, but this can be effective for anyone) if you do this when you go to bed at night, preferably if it's the last thing on your mind before you fall asleep, it will increase the chance that you'll become lucid during sleep.  especially if you make it a bed time habit.

 

later,

gene

 

 

I'd always figured that because the mandarin can ask if he's just a butterfly dreaming he's a mandarin, he's the awake one. If it turns out that wondering if you're dreaming means you are, that's a bit of a twist.

oftentimes in a dream i'll conclude that i'm not dreaming. especially when i'm having a dream that i'm just waking up and getting out of bed! or when i dream that i'm sitting in a dentist's office reading a magazine. so it can go both ways in a dream.  but when i'm awake i don't even finish asking myself whether i'm dreaming because i already know i'm not.

Weird tangential thought - Wilber associates dreaming with subtle experience. But my understanding is that dreaming only takes place in one hemisphere of the brain, and that's why you can't read or tell time in a dream. Is that true? And if so, what does that say about subtle states?

holy shit!  i never made that connection.  i have often wondered why i can't remember the fantastic insights i have in a dream.  i mean i have been in dream state and have had tremendous archtetypal insights that i try to carry back into waking state.  at some point i "forget" the insight and intentionally slip into deeper sleep until i can grasp it again . . . back to waking state trying to hold onto the insight and it slips away.  just the other night i was dreaming about a good answer to the thread "what is soul" and i came up with three penetrating descriptions of what soul is. but i can't for the life of me remember now what they were.  they're in the opposite side of my brain!?  i have to think about that for awhile.

[so that's how it feels to have your corpus callosum sliced through!]

 

later,

gene

So this is just a great story, although it's going further down the tangent road.

A friend of mine once had a dream in which he was reading a William Blake poem, and realized halfway through that it wasn't in fact the poem he thought it was, and that Blake hadn't in fact written it. This woke him up. But on waking, he managed to remember and write down most of the poem. I, like you, have a tendency to lose any great ideas I have in a dream, so I was very impressed with this. It wasn't a great poem, but it did sound a good bit like Blake.

I really appreciate the following comment.  On first read it seemed like RAM was describing dreams that I have which I would not consider lucid.  When I read this it made it seem like one can be in a lucid dream and perhaps be trying to do something but not succeed.  On the other hand, one can be lucid and just decide to be present and not engage any specific intention.

adastra:

Robert: ...After a while, it became more interesting to leave the dream alone, to simply abide in the midst of it, and see where it took me. Dreaming or waking, lucid or not, ecstatic or depressed, the work was basically the same, to simply be as present as possible, uncommitted to — and unidentified with — the intentions of any particular “I.” And what did this do to my dreambody? Freed it, at least to some extent, from what I “normally” took it to be, thereby permitting it to more fully be a medium for simply maintaining relationship with my environment.

This next one is something that I had to check out, because last night I had a really intense dream experience of savikalpa samadhi.  This is something that has not happened to me during normal waking state or during meditation.  Last night after a really powerful Q&A with a spiritually advanced friend and our tsonga (via paltalk...can be really a great way to do these things BTW), I set the intention as I was falling asleep to be fully present.  This dream was completely beyond expectation, though I wouldnt' necessarily count it as lucid.  The state experience, though in the dream, was like nothing I have ever experienced, and I am only assuming it was savikalpa samadhi based on anecdotal descriptions.  Maybe I'm not classifying it right, and it is becoming more and more difficult to recall the feeling of it as the day wears on, but it was so clear that everything was alive with the same brilliant essence.  I have experienced many subtle energetic sensations during waking states and meditations, but nothing at all like this.  When I awoke I was literally dizzy like I was hung over.  Still feeling a little buzzed but nothing like in the dream, in which every cell in my body felt like it was alive with all the energy of the entire universe.  Astounding.  Curious if there is any experience form I-I folks or anything has been said about this kind of dream experience, beyond what RAM is indicating in this brief snippet.

adastra:

Robert: ...Such meditative practice may also occur, albeit rarely, during lucid dreaming ...

Thanks for posting this, Arthur.  I really appreciate it.

Keith

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Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. -unknown

Hi Keith

Degrees of lucidity are fascinating to me.  We can be implicitly aware that we are dreaming (e.g. employing magical powers which we know will work "here," signifying an awareness of the state), but without representing that knowledge to ourselves in a narrative/cognitive fashion.  I've had dreams which did not have the feeling of being lucid - I did not feel present and aware - yet I referred to the fact that I was dreaming and/or employed magical powers; I'm still not quite sure what to make of that.  Another interesting case is a few dreams in which I felt very present, very awake - yet had no idea that I was awake in a dream.

The most interesting uses of lucidity, to me, are 1) the type of witnessing Robert is talking about; 2) Using the lucid state to induce an altered state - as in deliberate "high" dreaming (taking a dream drug), 3) doing some sort of meditative or energy practice (yoga, mantra, t'ai chi, etc.) 

Perhaps there is some way you could try to deliberately induce another experience of savikalpa samadhi (if that's what it was) in the dream state.  Might help you to do so in the waking state eventually also.   

arthur

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

The Lucidity Letter was published from 1981-1991 and is a treasure-trove of lucid dreaming related articles, interviews, letters (but you probably guessed that) etc.  It is now available online in it's entirety:

The Lucidity Letter

Please, if you find anything particularly worthy, link to it in this thread.  Enjoy!

spiral out,
arthur

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn