I have been trying to really wrap my head around how non-dual awareness really feels, as awareness just seems so inherently dualistic…I must be aware of something. This is important to me because my dreams are filled with people who I am constantly interacting with and I inevitably get caught up in their fantasies and delusions.
I have come up with a hack that is helping. During the day I have been practicing radiating awareness as if I was a RADAR station on a hill…just receiving the images but not interacting. This is a very effective exercise at my office in group meetings or around “the water cooler” and it is beginning to prove very effective in the dream.
This as opposed to the SONAR that a bat uses in echolocation where the information is being constantly acted on instinctively.
I have a potentially naive question. Note that I am quite green in terms of meditation practice and dream yoga.
I resonate with the statement that awareness seems inherently dualistic: it is certainly my experience… You also mention that your dreams are filled with people. I was wondering whether you viewed those people and “their fantasies and delusions” as reflections of yourself? And if yes, are those your fantasies and delusions?
I understand the question is a bit tangential. It’s just what’s coming for me as I read your post.
I am coming around to the realization that perhaps pure awareness is only non-dual when it is completely formless and empty of content. Once awareness becomes aware even of itself, a dualistic tension begins and from that tension arises form as a subtle separation develops in the field of awareness.
I am coming to view all of these potentially dualistic interactions more as conscious experiences only…so they become extensions rather than reflections of myself. In that way I am able to maintain a non-dual perspective even as i interact in both the waking state and the dream state.
