Just shy of seven weeks in to my renewed practice based on The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (TYoDaS)'s Four Foundational Practices, this morning I had two full-on lucid dreams! Up to now in this “reboot” I’d had two “lucid waking moments”, one about 2 weeks ago and one about 4 1/2 weeks ago.
What was particularly notable about these: they were both late morning (a lot of my LDs come around 5-6.5 hours of sleep), but I found myself awake with no recall to speak of at about 6.5 or even 7 hours today.
Recently I’ve adopted Andrew’s “lucid count down” from his “Lucid Dreaming Workbook”, to great effect. I’ve never before really paid any attention to the process of falling asleep, and when I did try, for example when WILDing or “waiting for hypnogogia,” I just found myself wired fully awake going nowhere.
To my utter astonishment, I found that I typically lose the count at bedtime very quickly. Often I will not make it to 10 before losing the count or slipping into image/hypnogogia. Sometimes I won’t even make it to 5! This seems to hold true also up to about 3 hours. At 5 hours, I can count much higher (30, 60) without missing a single one. So AH’s “lucid countdown” seems to be both a sort of self-hypnosis for falling asleep for me, as well as an excellent barometer of just how close to sleep I am.
The benefit in doing something that requires just a tiny bit of attention is that it does not interfere with sleep itself (AH says to do it quietly, slowly, mindfully), and it shows exactly when your mind is starting to wander as you drift off towards sleep.
What’s so great about catching this moment, is then you can shift to something else, even quieter, and still hang on just a little bit and begin to notice / engage with hypnogogia.
I plan to read “Liminal Dreaming,” but I don’t have it yet, and I asked some LD friends “just how do you engage with hypnogogia!?” and to my surprise nobody was able to give me any sort of clear or useful answer, as a step-by-step how-to .
A friend from an Astral Projection discord gave me a concrete answer: at first, just observe any images that arise, do not engage them, “view them from a distance.” After a while, start trying to make tiny changes or influence what you’re seeing, like change a color, or add a small object, like a ball.
Then “swipe away” the image to erase it, and wait for the next image to arise, make a small change, and swipe it, too.
The idea is that this engages some parts of the mind that makes lucidity in dream easier/closer. And I suppose it helps to support continued awareness as one gets closer to sleep.
So this morning, at about 6.5-7 hours after bedtime, I was lying in bed awake and not feeling particularly sleepy, but I’ve stopped getting up in these moments and instead turn towards meditation and relaxation.
So I started AH’s lucid countdown. And to my amazement, I found myself drifting off somewhere around 10. OK, so, relax more I think. I shifted to a non-count mantra, I like to use “I am…clear light” (synchronized to inhales and exhales). I also like “I am…dissolving” [into clear light]. And at some point I drift off into sleep. I find myself in a non-lucid dream scene, I interact a little bit with the dream characters there, then just realize “I’m dreaming!” and go on to have a nice LD.
After waking, I recall the LD, and remain in bed. I’m remaining quiet and relaxed. this is for a while. Things are getting noisy in the room as the dogs start to get active, and my spouse gets up to let them out, so I have the bed and room to myself.
So I decide to try again. And just like before, I started with the lucid countdown, and lo and behold, I start to drift off again! Again shift to a quieter mantra, notice hypnogogia (am not sure if I ‘played with it’ the 2nd time), enter a non-lucid dream, get lucid from within the dream, and go on to have a fun LD with some memory of dream goals.
Two LDs in one night is very rare for me. Two LDs in the late morning is almost unheard of, especially after waking fully from the first, I don’t think I’ve ever had a 2nd follow a first in late morning unless it was immediate dream re-entry like in DEILD.
There are a lot of things I’ve learned from this. Probably the main one is belief in TWR’s sentence in TYoDaS: “The secret teaching is – relax.”
I’ve been really working on adopting just what he says in TYoDaS. “The whole approach is to relax, take a deep breath, open, allow, trust…let the results of the practice come to you, instead of ‘working hard to make the results happen’…” Do the practices, with intent, but also with “openness, ease, a relaxed attitude.”
I think I’ve traditionally suffered from being way “too tight.” It seems I’m starting to approach the required balance!
The other thing I’ve learned is that the AH lucid countdown is a great way for me both to drift off and to follow the progress towards sleep. The “playing with hypnogogia” approach also seems to have great potential.
Additionally, I now regularly cultivate gratitude before sleep, and from AH’s advice in the Lucid Dreaming Workbook, I now dedicate my lucid dreaming practice “for the benefit of all who want to lucid dream.” Thus I hope something I write here will someday be of use to somebody!
I’ve also decided to treat all dream characters with respect.
I’ve also heeded TWR words that even if you have to practice for a long time, don’t get discouraged. “Just let the practice be part of your life.”
Great dreaming to you all!
p.s. some sentences from TYoDaS that have really resonated with me:
“Using these practices makes everything that happens a cause for the return to presence.”
and
“There is no stronger method of bringing consistent lucidity to dream than by abiding continuously in lucid presence during the day.”
! Great progress. Time away seems to flick a reset switch and make the dreams flow more naturally.