Hello from New York

This concern is what kept me from practicing he WBTB menhod for a long time. Also initially any time I tired to do it with Galantamine, it over stimulated me and I could not go back to bed.

After close to year of trying to develop a tolerance to Galantamine, I have had 2 minor successful attempts at WBTB. However, I made sure to do it on weekend nights when I was extremely sleep deprived and woke up 5-6 hours into the sleep sycle naturally. After taking the galantamine, it took me 2-3 hours to get back to bed, and I spent that time saturating my mind with books or material on Lucid dreaming.

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I am a newb to much of the Buddhist teachings, so definitely looking forward to learning more about Phowa and the Mahamudra tradition and practices.

That is very cool. Have great trip, and stay safe. I definitely think there is a power in learning sacred teachings at sacred sites.

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I apologize for the delay, I was double checking on this for you. Pure Lands II is not available for purchase, but will be held as a future event!
Hope this helps.

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Having a daily reality check practice helps too, and if you are consistent enough you may not even need MILD or WBTB, just the habit of doing reality checks will work. I’ve had similar thoughts about the more invasive techniques like WBTB or that one where you totally change up your sleeping schedule (forget what it’s called). As for MILD I usually wake up once or twice in the middle of the night anyways, so it’s a perfect time to do it then as I’m already up. If you also usually wake up in the middle of the night, that’d be a good time to try it. It doesn’t keep you up, you just imagine yourself in the dream you were just in but this time lucid.

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Thanks Alyssa! I will be on the lookout for Pure Lands II.

Thanks Matt—all good suggestions. As for reality checks, I’ve been doing illusory form practice pretty regularly (taught by Andrew in his Dream Yoga if I recall) the last couple months. A key part of it is throughout the day reminding yourself that this is all a dream, a manifestation of mind. Hopefully the effect is the same as with reality checks. But maybe not?

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This is the practice I carry a lot. When I was originally trying to induce lucid dreams I did tons of reality checks while I believed fully this world was a dream. I would pinch my nose and try to breathe in almost every situation I could.

An in-between way would be using looking at text looking away and looking back to act as a trigger to remember your illusory form practice. Text is very stable in my dreams but I associate this reality check with lucidity and illusory form.

IMO while trying to start your practices use all techniques you can to your advantage. Hope you enjoy your retreat!

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I started to do the nose hold test religiously about 3 weeks ago, and it has started to show up in dreams. With 2 successful minor lucid dreams.

I have also heard multiple skilled lucid dreamers say that the nose hold is their go to method for reality checks, becuase its so highly,effective. Based off my limited but quick success with it, I can see why they feel this way.

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This. I went through and made a point while I was having a lot more frequent lucid dreams to thoroughly test reality checks. The main reason was to provide my mom with the best one and the nose pinch is the only reality check that has never failed in my dreams.

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Yes illusory form helps a lot. If you are always questioning your reality in waking life you will do it in dreams too. My personal practice though is to add reality checks to this (or “status checks” as Andrew likes to call them). I find they go very well with each other. The phrase I like to use for illusory form practice is “Is this a dream?” and I find this naturally flows right into a reality check whenever I see something anomalous.

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I am back from Nepal and my retreat there, which turned out to be quite intense (but excellent). Thanks for the tip about the nose pinch. I am going to try doing that regularly and see what happens.

A question for you: have you ever tried using virtual reality as an aid to lucid dreaming? I read that studies have shown that it can be quite helpful. I’m intrigued.

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I like the idea of connecting illusory form practice with reality checks. Now that I’m home again I will try that.

Another question for you that I also asked NightHawk: do you know anything about using virtual reality as an aid to lucid dreaming? I read that studies have been done that show VR can be quite helpful in that regard. It sounds interesting…

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I have not tried VR yet, its on my bucket list. I do believe it can help, Andrew has said it does. I think it may require habitual usage to really show strong effect though, not sure if one time usage would be groundbreakijg, but again, I have yet to try it.

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I have. It didn’t seem too, but I should try it again as I come to it with more experience.

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No. This is a good question to bring up during one of the Q+As I think. I have a VR device but I’ve just used it for gaming. Not sure how in can be used in a spiritual context. I’d be interested in learning more too. I know Andrew did a podcast on this, I have yet to listen to it. https://nightclub.andrewholecek.com/courses/interview-series/lessons/the-relationship-of-virtual-reality-to-lucid-dreaming-with-jordan-quaglia-8/

I did try to look for some VR apps that would provide an AVE experience (audio and visual entrainment), I did find one app here, but otherwise the selection is very limited.

There are plenty of interesting meditation apps on VR though. Tripp is a popular one. Here’s their website: https://www.tripp.com/ . I did their trial and found it really intriguing. I don’t think this type of meditation is for me personally though, I find the beautiful visuals too distracting. Everyone is different though and a lot of people love this app.

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See this post

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Thank you for introducing yourself. May find what you are looking for and may it contribute to your well being. I appreciate knowing of your history with Buddhism for through it Andrew’s creative genius is placed in context and is helpful to those of us largely ignorant of these and just about most related issues.

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Hello,
Is this where I introduce myself? I am just signing up and am not sure of the protocol. Thank you. Tory

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Greetings. You might share some of your interests and experiences here. The Night Club is indeed a Community.

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