I’m going to be taking a social media retreat for the month of June. Some sites that I frequent I find are too much of a negative influence, with a small number of people (one in particular) who have taken it upon themselves to “correct” my approach to the practice, who contradicts everything I write, even positive progress reports, things like: “how do you know you were actually in lucid presence?” He positions himself as the ultimate expert on Dream Yoga and only he knows how to progress properly along the path. Seems highly contradictory IMO.
Ah well. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes, “You don’t have to win the disagreement… have compassion for the attacker, you see the person is lost in their own dream”
From my observations, you have been nothing but a virtuous poster here, and your insights have been very insightful and helpful. If there are Negative Nancies on the web who do not appreciate your wisdom or time or love, do not engage with them. let them vent their negativity on someone else.
I think breaks are healthy, and I am very happy to hear you have been having so much success with lucid dreaming. Sounds like the ‘hologram’ haunting you on that site may be jealous, no? (very Jelly).
Its called the Warriors path for a reason. Use this obstacle as an opportunity.
Hope to see you back here soon my firend, in the mean time, may the Buddha be with you.
I have come to the realization that I am not mature enough in my practice to remain in stable presence when faced with such negativity, when singled out for harassmemt. I lost several nights of sleep over repeated situations recently. I’ll get there I’m sure. For now, I need gentler stimulus for Foundational Practice #2 (awareness when reacting to experience).
So for now, I need just to leave the Turkey Farm for a while :).
Well the first day of avoiding the turkey farm worked out: a lucid dream, very bright and vivid, and something new: it came at only 2-2.5 hours of sleep, probably my very earliest LD! It was hard to get back to sleep after this, I was so excited by this new experience. I did though, eventually, and the dreams of the night were very vivid and interesting, with strong presence and many more opportunities for lucidity. I’ll start catching more and more of those I’m sure, in time :).
I experienced the same tonight!.. probably a LD wave… but usually, for me, when it’s so soon the experience is not so great… tonight was no exception… it was almost a nightmare… and lucidity was there but very low lucidity… the good thing is that it evolved through the night and my last dream had the theme of the first LD, but now totally healed and with fresh beautiful ideas.
interesting enough I would say exactly the opposite! that you are now mature enough to face such opportunities of becoming clearer and clearer about your practice! If you need any assistance and help in transmitting experiences count on me! If there’s one thing I learned throughout life is that our “enemies” are our best friends, in the sense that we can become stronger, more solid and firm in interactions with them. In those occasions we can also see who is with us supporting these experiences.
This is what really surprised me and was why I was so excited: it was like a late morning LD in terms of clarity/vividness. And the dreams leading up to it also had a good amount of presence and a decent amount of cognitive ability, unusual for first/second cycle dreams.
Strangely enough, I have experienced this in 2 crazy lucid naps… it’s a mystery… a wonderful mystery having access to a lightful lucid dream in such a short period of time. today I posted something about the sleep cycles that you might enjoy:
Probably one of the most important aspects of a dreaming practice is understanding and optimizing sleep (for both rest and for dreaming). I find that it is very reliable that my dream recall tanks when I go to bed after midnight. Somewhere in the range 10:30-11pm seems to be the best bedtime. I resist a regular wake up time to allow for the possibility of getting in some more “snooze” lucid dreams, of which I’ve had not a few in the last several months, so it seems worth the trade-off (?).
yes. in all my regular practices I am always delighted to find the exceptions extremely productive. Using a very happy expression from AH, “When you do the practice, the practice starts doing you.” this is so true from my experience! After some time in creating a consciousness matrix that allows things to happen, they indeed start unfolding, and sometimes, particularly when I deviate a bit from the regularity.
this is very beautiful and a synchronicity… I’m reading this book at the moment, that I highly recommend:
And tonight I did a practice which blew up all my sleep patterns. It’s the first day… I’m looking forward to witness what will happen tonight!!!.. or in the next nights. By then, I can give more information. Until then, if you feel, just pray for me!
Best. Book. Ever! But you already know that I think that :). This book is the foundation of my entire practice. I think I can live for years just within this book alone, I always find something new on every page.
I came here today to leave a thought: it’s important to “make friends with the present moment.” Our egos always want to pull us away, to distraction via media, food, other sorts of things, always searching for new stimulus. But learning to be content, I mean really content, right here, right now, is a key milestone on the spiritual journey. For life is really just a string of “now”'s, one after the other. If we’re never here now, then we’re not living…IMO.
And there’s a big difference in enjoying life in the present: I used to dread the time in between dreaming periods, “Oh, man, no lucids tonight, now I have to somehow slog my way through a WHOLE 'nother day just to get back to dreaming and a chance for lucidity again…what a drag.” And I’m sure that was not supportive of good dreaming.
Now, I think “yay, a whole 'nother day to practice, to enjoy and really BE PRESENT! Every minute I perform the TYoDaS practice with relaxed intent, I’m getting a minute closer to yet more awesome dreaming AND waking experiences!”
this is so aligned with one of the practices of what you call “Best. Book. Ever!”
Inspired in one of the four foundational practices - recognizing that this reality is a dream, I restarted doing this practice a few days ago!
Here’s how I’ve been doing:
After doing a tantra exercise with Amitabha and singing the dedication of merit for my day, I go to bed, and do another tantra exercise very good for women - in that state, I review the day as if being a dream… THIS IS SUCH A POWERFUL PRACTICE for appreciating and living the present. For being able of reviewing the whole day, we need to be present and attentive, which is also a foundation of dreaming lucid - the more you are lucid during the day, the more it is during the night!
Yesterday I was walking by the beach and was so immersed in this practice that… I saw dolphins!.. Far away! Jumped into the ocean to swim closer to them!.. I truly felt life is a dream, and what a beautiful dream we can dance with and be more and more responsible and able to co-create it when we are conscious of this dreamy frequency also in the awakened state!
yes beloved… we can just post it organically and share our stories with it… naturally
My feeling with this book is "aaahhh… someone who is in this frequency with so much gravitas that I can accept myself, my light and practice…
It started right in the beginning… when he shared:
“Lopon kindly agreed but asked that I, along with the other prospective students, bring him a dream from the night before the teaching were to begin so that he might determine our readiness” which reminded me of the dreams I had before the Pure Lands Pilgrimage! I felt so SEEN and LOVED for who I am - a Dream Warrioress…
I feel deep joy in sharing this with you. It makes it even more special. Thank you SO much!..
I would say from both and an extra one very powerful - the ancestral lineage… that’s why perhaps it’s so solid.
I was laughing high on this one, for several reasons… one of them was “Yes, it needs to be a warrior”! another “I have my days!.. not always lucky… hihihi” The other one was feeling this brotherhood… thank you BB
Getting the thread back on track :). For me I’ve noticed how easy it is to slip back into a “I am in control” mindset. It’s the “I’m working hard to make results happen” mindset, it’s the “I can force myself to sleep, dream, dream lucidity” mindset. The controlling mindset produces anxiety and frustration, causing one to tense up even more, work even harder, adopt an even more forcing/controlling attitude, generate more stress and anxiety, and so on.
It’s much better though, to have that open, allowing, trusting mindset. Do the day practices with intent, but also with an open, relaxed attitude. Trust then that the results will come in time. For one thing, this helps to get us “out of our own way,” to allow the experiences to occur in their own way.
Our minds already know what to do. The day practices performed with the conscious mind shows the way. They will manifest over time in the subconscious mind at night in dreams, as long as we’re not stumbling over ourselves via the controlling attitude.
My burst of lucid activity really accelerated once I adopted the relaxed mindset. I’ve slipped back into the controlling one, the frustrated one, and now lucidity seems farther away.
So. Thoughts for the day:
Be lucid and feel joy.
Abide in lucid presence.
Trust Tenzin, he knows the way.
supporting these experiences.
