Understanding Lucid dreaming
Q&A.
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1 - What is Lucid Dreaming ?
Lucid dreaming or conscious dreaming is an expression that refers to the truly amazing possibility we all have of experiencing the dream state while being fully aware of being aware of dreaming. Simply put, you are in you bed, your body is asleep and you are dreaming, but you are aware of yourself as the awake capacity in which the dream happens. With this awareness comes the possibility of linking our functionnal and personnal self (he one we are usually identified with during the day and wich we can remember within the lucid dream state) -with the deepest dimensions of intuition, of creative imagination and of the transpersonnal realm.
2 - Why do you say lucid dreaming is when one is being aware of being aware of dreaming ? Why this doubling ?
tWhen we state that lucid dreaming is being aware of being aware of the fact that we are dreaming while we are dreaming, is to emphazise the idea that full lucidity brings also full recognition of the implications of the fact that we are dreaming. It means that we can be free of all the beliefs and expectations we function with in daily life and enter a unknown inner world full of possibilities, marvels, insights and discoveries.
3 - Does it have something to do with controling the dream ?
To the same extend that being fully present, awake, aware, vigilant, in waking life doesn't mean we control everything; being present in the dream state doesn't mean that we can control everything in the dream state. However, due to the fact that limitations (personnal ones, social ones, physical ones) that generally exist on earth in daily life don't need to go on existing, we can have a certain degree of freedom and control. For example, we can fly or attract a dream scene corresponding to something we would like to experiment. The ability to have powers within the dream state, depends on many factors : our ease in maintaining with clarity the awareness that we are dreaming, what we allow and think possible, our beliefs, our willingness to open our mind, the character(s) we are identified with in a particular lucid dream.
While lucid dreaming certainly offer the possibility of consciously playing, experimenting and satisfying desires we may have, it would be a mistake to reduce lucid dreaming to a super "virtual reality wish fullfilling machine". It can be this wonderful wishfulling opportunity which has its role to play and which can be enjoyed freely, but the ankward will to rull over the dream state may at some point limit ourselves more that anything else.
4 - Is it possible to learn lucid dreaming ?
Lucid dreaming or conscious dreaming has shown to be a truly learnable skill and thanks to the active internet community of people interested in this wonderful state of consciousness it becomes clear that the fact that it is a learnable skill goes with the ever growing interest in this exploration.
5 - How long does it take to learn lucid dreaming ?
Some people experience lucid dreaming very spontaneously in their life, in a very significative way and sometimes in a life changing way. Often, this spontaneous experiences initiate an interest in learning how to access this inner door to our own inner spaciousness. The process of learning how to experience lucid dreaming at will depends on many factors (time available for the training and practices, energy level, past experiences and trust in the reality of this possibility for oneself, previous trainings which can ease the process, etc...), and for that reason it is difficult to state a standard duration for this learning process. However, to give an idea, we could say that once instructed, a dedicated individual who had already spontaneously experienced lucid dreaming and who would put this learning as a priority, can reasonnably expect to learn to access the lucid dream state at will between 6 to 18 months. The amount of time and energy needed for this learning can more or less be compared to the one needed in the process of learning a foreign langage (not chinese !) up to fluency.
6 - What are the benefits that we can expect from learning lucid dreaming ?
First and immediate benefit is the deep, joyful and amazed sense of play that comes with getting in tune with the possibilities of imagination. Adventures, precise experimentations, explorations of all the desires and fear that we have. And with this full blossoming of our imaginative abilities comes also the blossoming of intuitive abilities. That is the reason why lucid dreaming offer a space for self healing and transformation, innovations our behaviors and daily life, creativity and problem solving on many levels (personnal, technological, scientific, philosophical, psychological), inspiration in art. Some recent research show wonderful and effective applications of lucid dreaming in the world of athletes also.
Again, the practice of lucid dreaming gives us an unparraleled way of developping imagination, intuition, empathy, wisdom, creativity on all levels. With this exploration, when taken with heart and dedication, comes inner freedom, autonomy, contentment, and clarity on how unnecessary and avoidable psychological suffering - in ourselves and in other beings - is created.
7 - Is it dangerous?
No. There is no possibility of damaging your physical our psychological health with this practice. However, dream yoga, sometimes quickly, can bring a deep and profound transformation of the way we see the world and a change of perspective which is the one of being genuily in touch with our spirit.
8 - What is dream yoga ?
Dream yoga is simply an expression to describe the practices which includes lucid dreaming of course, and which aim to transform our relationship to dreaming up to the point where we become consciously intimate with the source, the intelligence, and the energy which create all the varieties of dream we may experience.
9 - Is lucid dreaming a form of escape , a kind of hedonism using a higher and vivid form of imaginative abilites ?
No. Lucid dreaming has nothing to do with an escape from the boring or painful aspects of our daily lifes. Neither it is a compensation for a frustrated life. And since lucid dreaming is not really about "controlling the dream", this possibility of human consciousness is not about having an inflated and unbalanced ego.
The fact that a certain kind of lucid dreaming are strongly pleasant and pleasurable experiences doesn't mean that this practice has to be depreciated. Pleasure is not the goal of dream yoga even if pleasure can happen and happen in a way that is sometimes far beyond what we usually experience.
10 - What is the difference between lucid dreaming and what is called "out of body experiences" ?
Some people claim that they have the ability to separate a subtle body from their physical body. A subtle body more a less the same than the one we may be identified with in the dream state. This body is supposed to be able to travel on the physical reality we are used to, and also to travel in "other worlds and dimensions".
While we are not saying that this never happen, it is a fact that many of the people with such claims are in fact experiencing the dream state without truly recognizing it. For example, they may be in a dream, in a enviroment that is a replica of they bedroom, and watch their body sleeping from a second and more subtle body. Since they don't really come to the full implications of the recognition of the fact that they are dreaming, they conclude that they are "out of their body".
So, "out of the body experience" refer to experiences in wich we have the perception of being associated with our body like for example also in near death experiences.
The question is a the end : "What is the nature of the reality that we are experiencing without being identified with our physical body ?".
11 - Can lucid dreaming be really a source of creativity and inspiration for artists or scientists or engineers ?
Yes, definitely. The cultivation of lucid dreaming skills magnify our intuitive and imaginative faculties. When we honor this marvelous faculties with dream yoga training we discover new ideas, insights, and a vivid mental imagery useful for simulation and rehearsal. Anyone with a passion, a talent, a set of skills can open new doors in its own domain by getting more intimate with the depths of intuition and imagination.
12 - Is lucid dreaming really for everybody ?
As we know, lucid dreaming is learnable and as with any learning process some people are more at ease and more initially gifted than others, but anyone with dedication can learn it and make amazing inner discoveries. In other word, lucid dreaming is not a rabbit in the sky only for an "elite". It is an really interesting possibility of human consciousness available to everybody with an open heart and an open mind.
13 - Why do some people say lucid dreaming can transform or relationship to desire and free ourselves from frustration ?
That's a big question that adress the possibility of lucid dreaming practice to trigger profound and freeing philosophical insights. Among this insights is the possible understanding and direct vision that as pure awareness we exist before desire and that the contentment that comes with the satisfaction of a desire is simply the contentment of being who we truly are at rest.
14 - What kind of understanding can we gain if we train ourselves to lucid dreaming ?
A practionner will get psychological insights from a personal and transpersonal level. With the increase in empathy and intuition that naturally unfolds with dream yoga, whatever the dreamer choose to put his attention upon can become a source of new understandings.
15 - What is the relationship of lucid dreaming with what is usually called magic ?
That's a big question !
In fact, with lucid dreaming with enter the world of the unconscious mind and the possibility then to bring the light of awareness in this unconscious. That is already magic !
To make things simple and keep the suspens we will say that dream yoga can offer spontaneous insights in the subtleties of magic thinking and possibly some amazing discoveries...
16 - Is lucid dreaming connected with all the things that parapsychology studies ?
Yes, there is a link of course between the two. But we don't need to have an interest in parapsychology to explore lucid dreaming. We can practice lucid dreaming without any consideration for the subjects that parapsychology studies, at least for a while...
Sometimes in our exploration of lucid dreaming, we have some unusual or very unusual experience that we may have some difficulties to interpret in a honest and satisfaying way. Then other frames of references and other worldviews of the nature of the psychic world can be helpful to make sense out of what we may have experienced.
17 - What is the difference between lucid dreaming and dream yoga ?
Simply put, we could say that dream yoga is a set of practices and contemplations for magical developments and spiritual awakening. Lucid dreaming in itself, is an ability, that can be experienced spontaneously or voluntarly without the direction and context of dreamyoga.
18 - What is the relationship between lucid dreaming and spiritual awakening ?
The practice of lucid dreaming and dream yoga can offer many amazements, delights, and understandings about the subtleties of the mind and of our inner worlds. But ultimately, what we can suddenly realize as an ever present evidence, unspeakable, is the deep and intimate core of who we are, beyond and at the source of our waking earthly life and of our dream life. If spiritual awakening is the recognition of the infinite miracle of consciousness that we are, an end to the tendency that we have to take things for granted, and an never ending state of amazement in which the mystery and beauty of life becomes a living reality for instant after instant, then we can say that the practice of lucid dreaming and dream yoga is source of spiritual awakening.
19 - What are the great philosophical insights that can be triggered by the exploration of lucid dreaming ?
Many !
In fact, all the great philosophical questions and amazements, for example regarding time, space, identity, nature of perception, nature reality, nature of thinking and imagining, can suddenly become very alive and of direct concern to us when we start practicing.
20 - Who first wrote and reported about lucid dreaming ?
There is numerous evidence in litterature since early centuries that lucid dreaming has been known and experienced by many authors. But, it is certainly in tibetan dream yoga and also in tantric yoga (which put an emphasis in raising the power of creative imagination) that it has been precisely and methodicaly detailed and explored.
21 - What does the training in lucid dreaming look like ?
It look likes, you are dreaming right now ! :-)
Well, to make it short we can say that the core practice is about raising the fire of awareness. All other practices are based on attention, intention, playing and deconstructing somes perceptions, consciously playing and exercing imagination. Most of the practice are in fact "transparent" which means that they very discretely integrate the flow of the world of our daily living, since everything is done in our inner worlds and in the way we use our attention.
22 - Is there a connection between lucid dreaming and psychedelics drugs ?
Psychedelic drugs can open the same inner doors than the one opened by the dedicated training in dream yoga. A conscious, well intented and well guided use of psychedelic can be a great source of discoveries and radical insights about one's life. So can be the practice of dream yoga. For many explorers psychedelics have been the intrance ticket in this explorations. Some consider that dream yoga is the best preparation for the fertile and safest use of psychedelic, and it is a point of view to be considered. Other think that dream yoga is the best possible way to go exploring what has been firstly revelead during a psychedelic experience.
In any case, there is bridges between the intelligent explorations of psychedelics and dream yoga : they both allow intelligence and consciousnessto expand.
The good news with dream yoga is that we don't need any drug to open the door behind wich marvels and secrets dance and shine...
23 - What are the most effective practice to quickly experiment lucid dreaming ?
Many practices based on attention, intention, imagination, and perception deconstruction, can open the inner space of conscious dreaming. Some are more prone to offer quickly a direct and significative experience of lucid dreaming that will give to the student/explorer the energy, the patience and the faith necessary for implementing other practices which will serve a level of mastery in finding the door of this inner space.
24 - What is the relationship between lucid dream and what is called "tantra" ?
There are some many different things today that are labelled "tantra" or "tantric", things that often have nothing to do with the original spirit of the tantric yoga tradition even if the appearances suggest so.
What can be said is that tantric yoga doesn't reject imagination and work with the idea that the fully conscious and developped state of this faculty, something called "bhavanna" is a door to pure self awareness, awakening, and inner freedom.
25 -When we become aware that we are dreaming, how does it happen exactly from an inner and subjective point of view? What does it feel like ?
Full awareness of the fact that we are dreaming can happen either by realizing during the course of a dream, that we are dreaming or by experimenting consciously the strange transition between the waking state and the dream state. In the first case, which is "waking up within the dream state", it happens often because we recognize that something is impossible or weird and that we correctly conclude that we are dreaming with possibly full awareness of all the implications of this realization. In the second case, it means that we manage to keep a conscious mind in the transition beetween waking and dreaming, transition that is full of very ununsual and strange sensations and impressions (confusion bodily sensations, expansion and contraction of the space our body occupy, deconstruction of the solidity impression of the ground we lie on, weird and loud sounds, paralysis, etc...). This possibility of conscious transition require more training than the first kind of dreaming but offer a deeper level of mastery regarding the opening of the lucid dreaming inner door.
