Mambo from Ohio, looking forward to being part of this community!

Introduce Yourself
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Hi everyone!

My name is Matt, I’m from Ohio in the US, as my username says. :smile: I’m nonbinary, my pronouns are they/he. I’m very happy to have discovered Andrew’s work and this community today. As soon as I learned about it I knew this was the place for me. I’ve been rededicating myself to my spiritual practice lately. I don’t have any specific tradition I practice in, I practice spiritual techniques from all different kinds of traditions that resonate with me. My main practices are vicharya atman, vipassana, singing Christian hymns devotionally, loving-kindness meditation, patikulamanasikara, and playing the shakuhachi (suizen). As you can see I’m kind of a connoisseur of spiritual techniques :sweat_smile:. I love learning about religion and spirituality in general in whatever tradition, and can be frequently found reading spiritual books or biographies of saints, sages or holy people from these traditions. I am especially drawn to nondual schools particularly though, especially Advaita Vedanta. In fact that’s what brought me here. While listening to the Vedanta teacher Swami Sarvapriyanda (YouTube tells me Andrew did a podcast with him, which I need to watch) use the dream state as an analogy for the waking state I asked myself: would doing self-inquiry in a dream help deconstruct the solidness of my waking state? I then remember back 8 years or so when I tried lucid dreaming and hearing about dream yoga, so I searched for resources on it and came across Andrew’s work. I felt immediately drawn to what he was saying as I have been regretting that I couldn’t do spiritual practice while sleeping.

I started keeping a dream journal about 2 months ago faithfully every night. I’m not exactly sure why, it may have just been a whim. Doing this reintroduced my interest in lucid dreaming, however, and eventually brought me here. As I said before I had tried lucid dreaming several years ago but ended up abandoning it because I only ever became semi-lucid and in that semi-lucid state I would indulge in hedonistic activities in my dream. This disturbed me- so I gave up lucid dreaming and thought I had closed that chapter of my life until suddenly this year I became interested in trying again. I hope with the help of this community and the teaching available here I can avoid this particular pitfall and approach my dreams more dharmically.

Besides spirituality I also love to crochet and make amigurumi, going on walks with my dog, and learning Swahili (mambo in the title of this post means “hello” in Swahili).

I hope that dream yoga and it’s associated practices will give me a vehicle to continue my sadhana during that night and also help purify my heart and mind of their aversions and attractions. I hope that dream yoga will give me another powerful tool to work with to change my predominantly tamasic nature into a sattvic one so I can get deeper into spiritual practices and the spiritual life and use this life as best as I can to make progress towards my eventual liberation.

Thanks for reading, and very happy to be part of this community and looking forward to a lot of learning. :pray:

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Hey @Bucket , welcome to the club! If you are patient and persistent I think you will have lots of success with LDs. It took me over 90:days of being on here to have my first LD in years, and before I found this site 8months ago, I spent 2 years of private study with no success. The people here and Andrew were monumental in my success and I am very greatful for all of them.

Glad to hear you are doing the dream journal religiously, I cant reccomend that highly enough. I fought doing it for years, and regret it now. Imstarted doing it when I joined here after Andrew said it was very important. If there was a fire in my home, and I could only save one object, my orginal dream journal would be it.

I am the same way. Looking forward to hearing which teachings you have found most meaningful.

What is vicharya atman and patikulamanasikara? How do you practice your vipassana meditation?

Would highly reccommend you ask Andrew as many questions as possible during the Zoom meetings (you can presubmit them too if you cant attend). He is brilliant and so helpful!

Recently joined the Dream Sangha group and have been really enjoying that.

I found it really helpful to immerse myself in as many top authors on the subject as possible, especially when reading before bed. Which books on Lucid Dreaming have you read?

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Welcome to the Night Club community. You may particularly enjoy some of Andrew’s dialogues with other spiritual teachers and truth seekers such as follows:

•Chris Wallis Andrew and Sanskrit scholar Christopher (Hareesh) Wallis take a deep dive into the heart of nondual Shaiva Tantra, the nature of mind and reality, and the role of the wisdom traditions in the modern world. Hareesh is a rare blend of scholar-practitioner, which means he practices what he preaches. Drawing on his magisterial book The Recognition Sutras, this conversation emphasizes the simplicity and immediacy of the awakened state, how to access it, and how to stabilize it.

• Interview #35 - Fariba Bogzaran Amazing interview. A real treasure. She’s given me the motivation to go back over my last two, three years of writing down dreams, most of which I can understand, despite my poor handwriting. I’ve never had a pre-cognitive dream, although I did have one that awakened me minutes before a disaster, so maybe that qualifies. Can’t believe how rich this dialogue is. “I try to have one highlight each day!” She even mentions the importance of dream sharing with family, which provides welcome reinforcement for the work of our excellent Dream Sharing Group. The only interview in this series that I have ever listened to again right after the first hearing.

I posted a list of some of my favorite interviews here, in case you’re interested.

Peace

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Thanks for the welcome NightHawk! Glad you are having success with the LD techniques taught here. And good to know it may take some time. Thankfully I think I am a pretty patient student- shakuhachi taught me that, it took about a whole month before I could even produce one sound on the instrument! Also I’m not just interested in LD and dream yoga- I plan on incorporating illusory body practices into my daily routine as well, so very interested in those resources too.

That’s one thing I already knew about LD- the importance of the dream journal. Thanks for reiterating that. Sometimes when I wake up from a dream I just want to roll over and go back to bed- but I force myself to sit up and write it down on my laptop. I feel this is a good way to discipline myself.

Vicharya atman is usually translated in English as “self-inquiry”. It’s the path taught by people like Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosphy. I practice the advaitan method- going through the panchakosa (five sheaths- the energetic, physical, mental, egoic and causal bodies) in my awareness by bringing attention to my breath then saying “I am not my breath”, then the body “I am not the body”, then my thoughts “I am not these thoughts” then the sense of “I”, “I am not the sense of I”, then the blankness behind it all “I am not this blankness.” This takes you to a place where you are just observing everything as separate from you and you realize you are just the awareness seeing it all. This is dualist so you have to take one last step and realize that this apparent separation is illusory, all these things are not separate from you, they are appearing in you.

Patikulamanasikara is a traditional meditation technique from the Theravada Buddhist tradition. It was taught by the Buddha himself. It helps deal with feelings of sexual desire by focusing on the contents of the body, the internal organs, secretions, etc and seeing that beauty is very shallow. I’m practicing celibacy so this technique helps a lot.

For vipassana, I just focus on the samatha stage- doing one-pointed meditation. The insight part I’m leaving until my mind is more concentrated. So I just focus on the feel of the air going in and out of my nostrils.

It’s hard to pick and choose when there are so many beautiful spiritual techniques out there! What techniques are you interested in?

[quote=“NightHawk999, post:2, topic:8054”]Would highly reccommend you ask Andrew as many questions as possible during the Zoom meetings (you can presubmit them too if you cant attend). He is brilliant and so helpful!
[/quote]
Thanks for the recommendation! I definitely plan to engage as much as I can with the materials here and attend as many meetings as I can. Planning on attending the Meditation group tonight. And good to know I can submit questions ahead of time. Looks like the book reading meeting and the Q+As conflict with my schedule so it’ll be great to still be able to ask questions even if I can’t attend.

I read the Stephen LaBerge book of lucid dreaming back then I tried it several years ago, but that’s about it. Need to expand that list of course. Any recommendations?

Thanks again for your welcome NightHawk and see you around the forums. :smile:

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Thank your for the welcome Barry! And for the recommendations. Those both look interesting. I am very curious to know more about Kashmiri Shaivism, Swami Sarvapriyananda also talks about it a lot with appreciation. As for pre-cognitive dreams- I think I have had one before. I forget the details though. But the knowledge of having had one is in my memory banks. It’s a fascinating topic, along with synchronicity.

Plan on joining the Dream Sangha when I can! I agree, it’d be great if dream sharing in the family was part of our culture, sadly not yet.

Thanks again for the welcome and be seeing you around the forums. :smile:

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Love this, have not heard this technique before, thank you for sharing that.

Sounds really interesting, do you know any links or resources that go into detail on this practice?

Have you ever tried focusing on your heart beat internally? Its more subtle than the breath, so more difficult to ‘catch’, easier to find the pulse internally in the throat. Even more subtle is to find the pulse in your 3rd eye, or the ‘Circle of Wilie’ artery. I can only find and anchor to that when I am really still.

Have you tried focusing attention on external obects, like a tree, or visualizing an object with your eyes closed? Wouod highly reccomend the book the Attention revolution, by Allan Wallace.

Most definitely:
Dreaming Yourself Awake by Allan Wallace
Dreams of Awakening by Charlie Morley
Lucid Dreaming by Robert Waggoner
(the Waggoner book has to be my favorite of the 3, but its the only one I have not read cover to cover, but I really like it because it talks about some pretty deep stuff in detail, including precognitive dreams and shared dreams, it years ago when I cleaned out the library shelves of lucid dreaming books, his book resonated with me the most. It also stated that finding holy or sacred sites could produce LDs, which is where ai had my first meaningful precognitive dream)

Andrews 2 books are also really amazing:
Dream Yoga
Dreams of Light
The latter really gets into some deep stuff which I think with your interests, you will be able to appreciate. I really like reading the book in my hands, and at same time, listening to Andrews vidoe commentary on each chapter. Takes longer, but Imappreciate the richness of the text mcuh more by doijg that.

Have not read his other books, but and eager too.

The deep ones that are difficult to grasp the first time you hear about them. But I am like you, I am always looking to learn new and interesting teachings, regardless of the tradition, as long as theynare deep and impactful.

@_Barry makes a great point about the interviews, I really like the Fariba Bogzaran interview too. He reccomended the one with Father Francis Tiso which was really good. There is another you might like with a Buddhist Doctor, will have to search for it, but its a video and he is in a Yurt or hut. One of my all time favorites is the one Andrew did with Robert Waggoner I think it is inteview #4.

You got some great insights, looking forward to seeing you around the forums as well. :slightly_smiling_face:

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forgot add this Gem to this list:

image

Andrew does an interview with him too which is worth checking out. If you get this book make sure you get the one with this cover, as it is the second edition.

Here is a list I found helpful as well:

Are You Dreaming? Exploring Lucid Dreams by Daniel Love

This book along with Stephen La Berges book is on my book shelf, but have not read more than a few pages of either yet. I will say I really impressed by the introduction page by Love, so I am hoping the rest of the book is equally as impressive, will keep you posted.

Heres a list of 20 books:

I am glad I scrolled through it, becuase I saw another book that really resonated with me when I got it from the library shelf:

Mindful Dreaming

Harness the Power of Lucid Dreaming for Happiness, Health, and Positive Change
by Clare R. Johnson

The cover art is what caught eye intially, (i love camping and sleeping in hammack), but it was her depth of going through the rich history of sacred dreaming that really moved me. As I am writing this, becuase her name stood out to me, I flipped through Robert Waggoners book, and in chapter 14, he gives a very powerful and moving story of Clare Johnson at a dream conference. Im read this passage a few days ago, and it hit home big, I did not realize she also wrote a book that was equally as moving to me years ago when I first started looking into LD. Now I have to go buy and re-read her book. Thank you for that synchronicity! :wink:

Andrew has 2 interviews with Clare on here, I need to go back and relisten to them as well.

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Listened to the 2 interviews with CJ, they are fantastic.

You may find this video helpful:

I really like her advice on being highly aware of how your body feels throughout the day, the pains, the way gravity pulls you, the different sensations. I remember of having 3 running dreams where I was jogging outside. In the last one I was amazed by how I did not feel any pain in my body while running, wish that had triggered lucidity :upside_down_face: . In the first 2 i was running naked, did not note the physical sensations becuase my mind was too preoccupied with trying to find clothes before anyone saw me lol.

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Materials on this specific practice are scarce for some reason. You’ll find some basic material if you look up “Reflections on repulsiveness” or “32 parts of the body meditation”. But nothing too in depth unfortunately. I remember reading a pretty long article about the practice and how it’s useful for cultivating concentration, but can’t find it now :expressionless:. Anyways I think this is a good overview of the practice, how you should approach it and how to do it, if you are interested: 32 Parts of the Body Meditation

If you want to go to the textual source for the practice, it’s in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta.

The heart is one of the organs you focus on in patikulamanasikara, so I have some experience with focusing on it. I haven’t done it as a separate practice though or used it for samatha. That’s an interesting idea. Thanks for the suggestion. As for the Circle of Willie artery, no I wouldn’t even know where to begin there :grin:. I do feel pressure there when I concentrate, but I’ve never felt anything like a heartbeat there.

I’ve tried focusing on a candle flame before. Also focusing on things that I visualize. So I’ve done both practices. I much prefer breath though as an object. Thought forms are too subtle for me I think. I’m always unsure of whether I need to revisualize or not.

Thanks for the rec! Attention is something I’m definitely interested in cultivating. I’ll put that book on my list on books to check out. :grin: And thanks for the other recommendations too. I picked up Dreams of Light. I figure illusory form practice is a good way to start my new journey into lucid dreaming and dream yoga. So I’ve been reading the book and taking careful notes. Also practicing IF as much as I can, like while walking my dog while muttering to myself “This is a dream.” I’m afraid some of my neighbors will start thinking I’ve gone crazy. :upside_down_face:

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I plan on watching all of them eventually! But a lot of material to work through, so it will take some time. The most recent one about yoga nidra peeked my interested. About 10 years ago I found a guided meditation for yoga nidra and tried it for sometime, but never got anywhere (my energy centers were too blocked and I just ended up vibrating all over). So interested in taking another look at that practice again… though I think it is quite advanced and I’ll need to work my way their patiently.

Yes I watched some videos of his on dream yoga before finally finding Andrew. My library has a copy, so I think I’ll definitely be reading this at some point!

This advice is pretty awesome. I’ve actually been doing this recently even before I heard from someone like her that it’s useful. For example on those walks I talked about I found myself really intently focused on my surroundings: the way smoke curled out of a chimney, the birds flying overhead, the shapes of the clouds, the rythm of my walking, etc. I agree with her completely: I suddenly started appreciating the beauty all around me in a way I hadn’t before.

Haha, those naked dreams. How fun. I’ve had those before. The all consuming drive to find clothes. I’ve heard dreams like this might mean you’re preoccupied with how other people see you or something like that? Not sure though.

Thanks for your detailed suggestions! This definitely helps as I start my new dream adventures. I feel like I need to be more methodical about things this time, do a lot more studying, go over my dream journals and highlight my dream signs, practice more awareness during waking hours, things like that. Glad to have this community here to encourage me and support me on this new nighttime journey of mine. :smile:

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Also, check out The 61 Points of light Yoga Nidra here. I have found it helpful.

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"First, use the body of another. Are you fantasizing about a desirable member of the opposite sex? Contemplate his or her body in terms of hair of the head etc. Mentally undressing someone? Keep going! Peel off the skin, the flesh, the sinews.

A real quick fantasy stopper: replace the object of lust with a skeleton. The absurdity of lusting after this impermanent and unsatisfactory body becomes starkly apparent when the imaginary lover becomes a pile of yellowed bones."

Great link, appreciate you sharing that, the quote was really good about undressing people.

You can also feel it when you are angry or working out hard. It took me a few years of meditation to find it while completely relaxed. It is VERY subtle, and we are so often blindly contracted in that area, that it feels almost unnatural to let it dialate and open. Doing some yoga neck streches and Relaxing your jaw miht help. Also finding the pulse internally in your heart, and then feeling the blood flow up to your throat might help, becuase it flows from heart to the throat and then to the Circle of willis, then flows back down, and repeats. I can usually catch the rhythm within 10min of sittiing meditation, after getting very still.

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I have been told by members that visualization Shamatha is very important in helping with stabalizing lucid dreams. In TWR book, he talks about the Chod practice, Andrew says it is better to pick a stable unmoving object, rather than a candle or something that is moving.

Would highly highly reccomend Video #11 Book Club of Dreams of Light on here. It gets very deep.

When you say to yourself “This is a Dream” it is very important to feel deeply, not just repetitvely mouthing the words. If it becomes monotonous, it will lose its effect.

You may have actually been close to having an OBE.

Yup, I have read multiple interpretations of it, I think this one was the most fitting for the 2 dreams I had:

" 3. Desire for liberation

Naked Dream Meanings can be contradictory at times. Since it also expresses a desire to liberate and release. The desire to be totally transparent and honest in your life.

To know how to recognize the hidden message of your unconscious mind, you must be attentive to the sensations you experience during sleep.

This desire to be free, not to be governed by what is established by society or by what others expect of you, can be represented by a naked baby.

It can also symbolize your desire to know more aspects of yourself and explore your human nature in all its possibilities."

In the inteview Andrew did with Clare Johnson, towards the end she mentions that starving yourself from food or sex can be a tool used to become lucid. I have not had success with this tip yet, but I have noticed if I skip dinner, or fast for a day or more, my I will have dreams about food. I did not try her advice of telling yourself in the liminal or preliminal state, “When I see food in my dream tonight, I will become lucid”.

I think you are absolutely right. This was the same conclusion I came when I found this site last May, after 2 years of being unsuccessful from reading books and half assing the practices. I doubled down and after obssessing for 3 months, finally I had a LD. Discouragement is part of the process, be tenacious, and dont give up, and I have no doubt you will be successful. Your spiritual background I think will help you a lot. Often the LD will come to you when you least expect them.

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Awsome thank you for sharing that

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Yes, I loved that quote too. I started using that, I can say it’s been effective!

Hmm, maybe I have been feeling it this whole time and just mistook it for the pressure I feel when I do concentration meditation. I just tried to locate it and I feel something there though I’m not sure it’s a pulse.

I have some experience with visualization with the patikulamanasikara and metta meditations. But like I said I struggle with them. I’m slowly getting better I believe.

Yes I’m finding it’s like mantra. You start out with a lot of intent but at some point it becomes mechanical and then you have to refocus and bring the intent back into the practice. I’ve been doing the same with this practice as well.

Oh that’s good because I do both pretty regularly! I have personally found myself that my dreams are a bit more vivid when I’m fasting. And yeah had those food dreams as well.

Thanks for the advice! Yes I want a good background for my LDs this time around. That’s why I joined this community. Might start experimenting with reality checks again next month or something, but right now I think I want to focus on preliminary stuff. How has your degree of lucidity been? Is there a process with that too? I remember when I had lucid dreams before they were all semi-lucid, I’d like to have stronger lucidity this time around.

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Thanks for sharing this resource Barry! This is very similar to the practice I did about 10 years ago. I’m definitely looking forward to working with this practice again. Maybe I’ll be more successful this time around after all the spiritual cultivation I’ve done in these last 10 years.

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Yes the the single object shamatha meditation visualization is difficult, and takes lots of practice. I am slowly improving, but took a lot of effort.

Might help to set goals of 1second, 2, 4, then 8 seconds etc. If you can find yourslef doubling the time you can stabily hold the visualization every week, you will be making big progress!

Me too, I have found that along woth the increased vividness I sleep deeper too, as long as I can get to sleep and am not being woken up by severe cravings.

It has been pretty strong for the majority of the dreams, in 1 it was very weak. Clare Johnson talks about it falling on a spectrum. My biggest problem is maintaining the Lucidity and not waking up due to excitement or deterioration of the dream. I need to be meditating more. Watched andrews lattest meditation video yesterday while falling alseep and had a dream where I almost went to meditate in the dream!

I am still a newb to all this, but having been in your shoes recently I can tell you that if you stay laser focused and dont give up, big results will be on the horizon. Try to think of it as a lifetime skill, something you built on and gain successes with years of practice, and you will go far. Andrew says its like bringing a big pot of water to a boil, or a bathtub, or in my case a few dozen olympic swimming pools, the size of the flame and the time you apply it for will determine when it starts to boil.

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Thank you. Having joined here recently as you, it will take a few weeks to get acquainted with each persons’ introduction. Let this be a start. So many beautiful and eclectic practices “woven” together – if I may deploy that metaphor too.

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Interesting idea! I’ve never considered counting how long I can focus. That’ll be some useful data to have. I’ll try this.

Wow awesome that the awareness is so good in your lucid dreams! That’s something I struggled with when I tried years before. Also had the same problem with getting excited and having the dream deteriorate. Back then I wasn’t meditating so much, but I am meditating a lot more now. So hopefully, that will help? Can’t be sure though until I have an LD.

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement! I don’t expect to give up on it so easily before. The transformative power of these practices I think is going to keep my nose to the grindstone. I expect this will become a daily practice for me, like meditation has been for a while now. And if I get discouraged because the LDs aren’t coming or I only get semi-lucid LDs, well learning to deal with emotions like that is part of the path too!

Thanks for the welcome! And haha, yes it’s my “patchwork” spirituality. :grinning: I am a child of this syncretistic age. Look forward to see you around these forums, fellow new person. :grin:

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I didn’t have a lucid dream till I was seventy one. Lots of practice in how not to have one. :grinning:

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