Hi, everyone. I’m here solely for serendipitous reasons. I did a google search for the essay “Why I Adore The Night” by Jeanette Winterson, and Night Club came up in the results, as it had been posted here. Nevertheless, I am very pleased to have discovered this community that I had no idea existed.
I have always had an interesting relationship to the dream state, but I didn’t start exploring it intentionally until a few years ago after coming across the teachings of Sergio Magaña who’s knowledge comes from the Toltec lineage of dreaming. I have had incredible results with some of the practices I learned through him, however I haven’t been consistent, and life has been too challenging to really focus.
But now I feel I’m ready to commit to the practice again and I think connecting with like-minded people will certainly support this, as I don’t have any people in my life that share these interests. Anyway, looking forward to interacting with you all, thanks for having me.
Welcome to the Night Club! There are a lot of resources available here for your stated interests. Have you read any of Andrew Holececk’s books on Dream Yoga? In many ways they parallel Sergio’s works, but from a western/Tibetan perspective. Andrew also has scores of interviews and dialogues with many folks involved in the nature of reality, lucid dreaming and lots of things associated with them. He hasn’t dialogued with Sergio yet but he has with Charlie Morley, a couple of times. Charlie and Sergio have held several workshops together so these is some familiarity present already. If you are an Emerald member you can access those interviews and others. If not, still enough information here to keep you busy for quite a while.
A lot of the interactions on this site involve members sharing experiences and resources. My brother worked with Sergio for a time in Mexico a few years back and had a lot of great things to say about the experience, particularly with the obsidian mirror and visiting the pyramids. Charlie Morley also discusses techniques he picked up from Sergio including some dazzling uses of an ordinary mirror.
You wrote of Sergio Magaña that “I have had incredible results with some of the practices I learned through him.” Can you share some of those?
Thank you! No, I haven’t read any of Andrew’s books and hadn’t even heard of him before now. But I took a quick look at his website and it resonated, especially the part about death. I’m looking forward to reading his books. I’m familiar with Charlie Morely, but haven’t delved into his work, though I know him and Sergio work together.
I haven’t done work with the obsidian mirror yet, but for awhile I was doing Sergio’s breathing exercises and dream sowing exercises which involve different eye movements. In the dream sowing exercises you sow different animal archetypes that symbolize different intentions. Once you are able to have a dream with the animal in it, these intentions should manifest in waking life. I was able to create these dreams, through these exercises, and manifest in subtle ways. Sergio always says that fear of death blocks you from being able to dream lucidly, and I feel that my subconscious fears keep me from doing a lot more. One thing I did notice about my dreams during that time was that I had very strange experiences with my eyes within the world of the dreams, that was obviously tied to the exercises. So I came to the conclusion that our physical eyes in some way are not only connected to physical perception but also non-physical or spiritual perception. Sergio also has exercises you do wearing a mask, looking into a regular mirror, for the purpose of disconnecting yourself from your egoic perception of yourself. I also noticed that these particular exercises had a great effect on my eyes as well. For example, one lucid dream I had started off as me feeling like I had a mask on, and my vision was strange in the dream for a few moments until I went lucid.
I think the biggest thing I want to sus out here is being able to understand the different types of experiences one can have in the dream state. I have only had a handful of what would be considered the stereotypical lucid dream, being able to control and manipulate the dream. But I’ve also had dreams that felt lucid, though it wasn’t about controlling so much as either receiving information or feeling like I was literally somewhere else - not sure if that makes any sense. I’ve also had dreams where I was a different person, experiencing something physically traumatic in the world of the dream, and when I woke up, I had to contend with literal physical pain - mostly severe pain in my head. I don’t quite understand astral travel, but I feel as though my experiences may be more connected to that. I don’t know! But hopefully learning from others will help me make sense of it all.
Hi Karissa!
Like Barry mentioned there are so many resources available within Night Club for you to explore! We have several different virtual get togethers that cover a multitude of topics the you can find the schedule here: https://nightclub.andrewholecek.com/e/
I know I repeat this often, but you have stumbled into a wonderful community of like minded people who fill this space with knowledge!
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything!
Alyssa (admin).
Hey!
I have just landed here too. Excited for the information and storytelling.
Sergio’s books I found quite transformative also. Especially the shadow cleansing series. Moving through that with full dedication definitely helped remove a variety of layers and brought on bizarre multidimensional dreams with beautiful overflowing effects to the daytime.
Theyre covered over a few chapters in ‘dawn of the 6th sun’ . They are intention setting exercises with the rising sun and from memory each round take about 4 months.