My name is Peter from the Netherlands. When I was a kid I had a few lucid dreams one in which I was flying like a bird which is one of the most happy memories from my childhood. I have been meditating a lot the last 10 years, mostly vipassana and metta. Since last september I have been writing down my dreams daily and have been practising lucid dreaming. In this period I have had a number of lucid dreams (about 10-20), some very mundane and some very inspiring.
I am interested in exploring consciousness through lucid dreaming, and in meditating during my dreams.
At the moment I am working on increasing the number of lucid dreams and in stabilizing my lucid dreams as the most of my lucid dreams lasted short.
Looking forward to meet like minded people and to get inspired and learn.
Great to see you online Peter. Your background sounds like an excellent foundation for building an awesome lucid dreaming practice. We have a Dream Sharing group on Sundays, 11:00 AM MT time US, which should be about 7:00PM your time (Emerald Members). We come together, share how things are going for us, maybe share a dream and discuss our intentions for the coming week. There’s a lot to be learned there if you’re interested. Check out the weekly schedule for what’s happening in the near future and if you attend any of the live webinars you’ll find that Andrew does a great job of answering questions and offers powerful tips for increasing lucidity in dreams.
What techniques are you practicing to increase frequency and stabilisation?
If not already known, check out the shamata threads. Shamata greatly helped/helps me.
best wishes
Hi KhyungMar,
For frequency and becoming lucid, I am practising wake bed to bed during the weekends. During the time I am awake before going back to bed I practise anapanasati or metta meditation, and then the mild technique before going to bed. During the dayI try to say to myself this is a dream as often as I remember, and really see my experience as a dream.
Most of my lucid dreams last short, as I become lucid I often immediately act out my intention I set for my lucid dream, or I become excited and wake up. So for the stabilisation I have been trying the spinning technique, and I am trying to remember not to immediately act out my intention, but to explore the dream I am in, by looking around or touching things.
Thanks for the tips on the shamata threads I will read into that further, interesting stuff. I already noticed that a concentration / shamata /metta approach in meditation seemed to be more benificial for lucid dreaming than “dry” vipassana.
In what way did shamata practice helped youre lucid dreaming practise?
I first stumbled over Alan Wallace via his Night Club Interview with Andrew and was fascinated by his structured approach, explaining the correlation between daytime shamata/vipashyana practice and LD. You can find the interview here on Night club.
I then checked out Alan’s free YouTube videos. I read The Attention Revolution and strted structured shamata practice accordingly. After that I got several recordings of 8-week courses from the website of Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness Studies. I have already recommended elsewhere the 2014 retreat recordings, which I am now working with the second time around.
How did that help me for LD?
The practice of shamata develops the mental qualities of relaxation, stability and vividness of attention. As Alan mentions in the interview with Andrew: shamata is the telescope whereas vipashyana is astronomy. Meaning, that one needs the technology of shamata in order to explore the mind deeper during dream time.
Currently, I have improved my mind’s stabilization and I am now working more on the vividness by switching shamata focus to the sensation of the breath at the nostrils.
Shamata slowly prolongs, stabilizes and makes the dreams more vivid for me.
Hi KhyungMar,
Interesting thanks! I like the telescope / astronomy metafor.
I’ll look forward to diving deeper in the videos and recording when i have more time in the future. In the past I a couple of books of Alan and found the books very helpfull.
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