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THE GLOBAL |
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| Lucid Dreaming |
Upon learning about lucid dreaming, curiosity surfaces in the consciousness and the appetite for experience is awakened. The skill can be taught and it can be learned. The two essentials for learning lucid dreaming are desire and will. Lucid dreaming requires direction of complete, undivided and full mental attention. The projection of attention which determines lucidity can be consciously directed in two ways: 1] controlled daydreaming, and 2] controlling the dream state. Controlled daydreaming is known as visualization. When you control your night dream experiences, it is a product of lucid dreaming. |
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Meditation and involvement in consciousness-focusing activities can strengthen the ability to experience lucid dreams. |
I don’t advocate changing or rearranging dream content until you consciously understand the dream itself. Receiving the subconscious mind’s feedback to your consciously chosen daily activities is essential for your mental, emotional and physical health and well-being. Changing dream content, just because you become lucid in a dream can have effects not anticipated by the dreamer. I am reminded of the beginning student who dreamed of a ferocious tiger. An enterprising fellow, he had exercised the ability to be aware in the dreamstate since he was a teenager. Now, in his early 20s he had experienced changing dream-elements often bragging to his classmates. When the tiger appeared in his dream, his ego-presence was so strong he just could not resist killing it. Afterwards began to get a little bit worried about what he might have had caused to occur in the inner levels of mind. He had learned enough of the language to know that the tiger was a habit. It was a fairly threatening one; one that was going to kill him in the dream, try to change him. Upon further awake reflection, his concern grew because he wasn’t sure which of his habits the dream-tiger symbolized. At this point he came to me for some kind of feedback or advise. Upon hearing his experience, I said, "Look, you are going to have to determine which habit you think the tiger represents and start adjusting your attitude. Because you’ve changed the habit in the inner levels of your consciousness, it is going to manifest according to universal law. Your recourse now is to identify which habit, adjust your conscious attitudes about it changing, and be willing to receive what you have created." The young man was nonplussed. As he began looking he saw many habits that the tiger could symbolize. His indecisiveness took up valuable time when he could have been making adjustments. It turned out that his dream-tiger was about his smoking habit. He kept smoking, he didn’t consciously give up the habit. So as he continued smoking, it began to make him physically ill. This was new which is how he was able to finally pinpoint the tiger-habit. The once pleasant habit had turned sour. Until he consciously changed his attitude about the habit, he continued to have physical discomfort when practicing it. All of this occurred because he had caused something in Mind with little awareness. I tell this story to bring forth your better judgement. When you wanted to drive a car, you learned how either by taking lessons or self-teaching. Taking lessons from a good driver gives you the benefit of what works, what is tried-and-true. You learn much more than just turning on the car, accelerating, and steering. You can learn about how to care for the automobile, the basics of how it functions (ever had to change a tire?), and how to handle it in adverse conditions, like heavy rain or snow. With a teacher, you can accelerate your learning. The secret to learning is that you are always your own teacher. Everything you have consciously learned has been self-taught. Once you realize this, it is easy to have good judgement about how and from whom you will learn anything. So, I recommend finding yourself a good teacher. This means someone who has successfully experienced what you want to learn. Would you go to a blind man to learn how to drive a car? Probably not. In a similar way, you would probably not consult a good driver who has read all the up-to-date books yet hasn’t driven for the past 20 years. In the realm of lucid dreaming this would be like consulting someone who knows about others people's experiences but has none of his own. Study at the School of Metaphysics honors the need for both personal experience and interpersonal experience and research at the College of Metaphysics sheds light on what those experiences indicate. from the soon-to-be-released LUCID DREAMING & other night time phenomena |