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I think I might occasionally dream but are able to open my eyes, and am wondering whether someone knows what could be going on. Sometimes when I 'crash' on the sofa because I feel tired (e.g. from a meal, although strangely not right after eating but towards the end of the digestive phase) and take a nap, what would happen is that I go into a recurring dream theme of having difficulty opening my eyes. This time that I still remember well, I was only able to occasionally half-open my left eye, with a lot of effort. And I was seeing exactly what I would see when opening that eye awake, lying there on the sofa, part of my arm in the view etc.. And then apparently the typical dream consciousness that likes to pick up impressions subconsciously and work with them couldn't not deal with that strong impression and the dream started revolving around that. Several times I got up in the dream and tried opening my other eye, or sometimes just doing stuff like browsing a catalogue or a video, as if to train my mind to awake to open the eyes by busying it with awake-like stuff. I would use my fingers and try to pull open my eyelid(s), but that didn't succeed. They were just wanting so strongly to stay closed, just like when extremely tired. In another moment I would move my hand(s) in front of that open eye vista and realize that nothing changes about it, that I cannot see my moving hand in front of me, as if the image was burnt in. (But when closing the eye things went black. Then I would actually dream of just having my eyes closed.) Then I would desperately keep seeking and eventually see my own face with eyes within that image, pretty much like that faint reflection of your own eye you have in your glasses if you focus on it, and then I noticed how when moving my hands my eyes (both open) in that reflection would follow the hand, and occasionally the speed of that would increase. So that was definitely the dream component. That reflection then assumed a wider view and I saw a villainous person figure looming over me from behind, not moving (fictional character, likely just symbolic for something) and I did defensive movements with my hands as if to ward him off or beat him up, and that in that moment felt distinctively as if I was out of the dream already, trying to do some 'dream aftercare' just in case. But that was still while asleep. I then woke up and felt very depleted, as usual after I take a sofa nap instead of a proper sleep in my bed. Now, I don't want to go all 'evil spirits' with this, but I think it could still all be an expression of my subconscious that my mind disagrees with being in the sleep state at that time and would much rather be awake. (I am in a prolonged situation where I have a desire to be more active but have trouble finding a path to that.) I find this quite severe. And I'm not sure whether it fits the diagnosis of sleep paralysis or is more like a partial version of the opposite, since I can move an eyelid while fully asleep. (Wikipedia: "Sleep paralysis is when, during awakening or falling asleep, one is aware but unable to move.") Although many descriptions there match.

Hi, Lairg, It's all a dream. You're using incorrect terminology to describe what happened. We're virtual characters in a virtual game. So those spirits (they may have previously incarnated as humans in current reality) can't be before existence. That's before the game boots up. There is No Thing before the game. Could they be from previous Universes before this one? Of course. But that's a previous version of the game. If you said that they were from a previous universe, that would be accurate. The game boots up, and the game shuts down. This cycle happens forever. A circle. We already know everyone because there is only ONE. The appearance of many is just that, an appearance. There is only one being that individuates Itself into many. So yes, you had a dream, but your terminology used in Interpreting the dream wasn't accurate. Yes, you know those people currently. We all have dreams like that. Cheers!

Or as Arlo Guthrie sang, "if you didn't know about that one, well, then what else don't you know" (Presidential Rag). There's at least one sermon where Gautama disparages women. He claimed "stroking the sun and moon with the hand" as one of six miracles. A. K. Warder says that the first schism came about because the various orders couldn't agree on one of six points. They agreed on five out of six--for example, that Gautama's omniscience was limited to matters of the dharma, he was not omniscient about everything--that was one of the points of contention. The point they couldn't agree on was whether or not an arhant could be seduced by a succubus in his sleep. In other words, whether an enlightened man could have a wet dream. I sometimes ponder how that got worked around into how the "great path" was superior because the mahayanists were willing to suffer along with everyone else until everybody was enlightened. You know, have wet dreams, and such. And it's true, that in Gautama's teaching, only the arhants really cut off sensual desire and the other hindrances at the root. Everybody else had to keep working at it, because the hindrances would continue to grow--no spiritual Round-up. I personally owe Gautama an overwhelming debt, for his teachings about concentration and about his way of living, the mindfulness that constituted his way of living "most of the time, especially in the rainy season". I don't really find the past lives/future lives and the social and moral prescriptions, the four elements and all, that useful. The Bodhisattva vow is actually more useful to me, I'll have to give the Mahayanists credit on that. Oh, and on that transmission of the teaching to Kasayapa, the story of Gautama holding up a flower and Kasayapa wordlessly receiving the teaching. That story is cited to justify transmission outside of scripture in the Zen tradition. Well, there was a mandarava flower given to Kasayapa by a wondering ascetic, who informed Kasayapa that Gautama had died (the mandarava trees had started blooming out of season). Kasayapa proceeded to the town where Gautama lay on the funeral pyre, and I guess he must have collected Gautama's robe and bowl at that time. That story is in the paranibbana sutta--wordless transmission, indeed!

aloha pak, My formal practice, such as it is, is only to just sit. Currently a half hour each morning and evening. If I even think about meditating I get a buzz and start to melt. Very gradually it has become easy and most pleasant. Otherwise I just try to do the best I can. Of course, every being does the best it can by nature, so it is easy to do and hard not to embellish and navigate and comment and etc etc. Snow white does her best while the seven dwarves make their characteristically immature and short-sighted comments, craving love and discipline and eventual maturity and authenticity. Seems newbies are restricted so while I can post I will continue in this message with what I want to talk about. My major focus is the work of ibn arabi. I'm not a sufi and have enough experience with so-called real sufis not to have any interest in organizations. I'm interested in hermeneutics, in ta'wil. I like coleman barks if not ladinsky, and think fitzgerald's version of omar khayyam superior to literal sufi versions. I see all religion philosophy science literature psychology through the lens of art and music. All truth is art, as keats says. All art is poetry. All bullshit is prose. The nexus here with taoism is in the names. God taught adam all the names. God the creator says to a thing "be" and it is. The kernel here is that existence is simply the names, the symbols we manipulate in order to kindle consciousness. In taoism, the ten thousand things are the direct result of naming, they are "the named." I cannot stress strongly enough that this is the root of all consciousness and to understand this is the end of all seeking. To begin with, a couple of quotes from william chittick, "ibn arabi, heir to the prophets": In effect, among all creatures Adam alone was taught" the meaning of the name “God” itself. He came to know and understand this name and all subsidiary names by knowing himself, made in God’s form. This sort of knowledge does not come by means of discursive thought, but directly from the nature of things. Ibn ‘Arabi refers to it as “tasting,” a standard expression for unmediated knowledge: God taught Adam all the names from his own essence through tasting, for He disclosed Himself to him through a universal self-disclosure. Hence, no name remained in the Divine Presence that did not become manifest to Adam from himself. From his own essence he came to know all the names of his Creator. (F. II 120.24) In the multileveled reality that is the human self, the traces of God’s names and attributes are relatively internalized. They extend from the corporeal to the spiritual realm, and they circle around the heart, the luminous center of the being, the spirit that God blew into Adam at his creation. In meditation, we (may or may not) have access to the ocean of consciousness unmediated by symbols, the womb of existence; reality. In a real sense this ocean is unconscious, unclouded by mediation, by explanation and reflection. The cloud of unknowing in which coping is perfect and self-consciousness is absent. Reality includes both this vast ocean of unconscious voidness/potentiality, and our tiny little shadow of a consciousness of this infinitely vast reality. It is our tiny little consciousness I want to put in perspective and examine. The nuts and bolts of consciousness are the names, the little marks we put on this vast sheet of paper. The taoist formula is "the blank that is a blank is not the true blank" and we find similar in the diamond sutra. For example, the horse that is a horse is not the true horse. An ordinary reasonable common sense person sees a horse and sees a "horse" - a variation on a theme, maybe it is brown, taller than most, sway backed. A child sees a unique animal with many interesting and special features. A horse dealer sees a whole set of parameters individualizing the horse. The horse that is simply categorized as a "horse" and is dismissed and unacknowledged as an individual sentient being by the average person is not the true horse, the authentic horse, the being looking at you and trying to say something about the world and its condition in respect of the liberation of all sentient being. Every thing has a name which is its unique essence, from which its thingness derives. It is not its "thing in itself" reality but its naming which makes it exist. Unnamed things do not exist, Even the Unnameable is beyond existence. What exists for us is purely symbolic but is taken uncritically as real, which is the problem. True reality may be "tasted" and directly perceived (as in the suttas) without the mediation of symbols. Even more interesting is that new symbols may be created and the old ones given new names. Other planes of being may be accessible. We may create, god-like, imaginal worlds "nearer to the Heart's Desire." It is henry corbin who has made luminous the work of ibn arabi and put it in the context of western spirituality, blending in heidegger and swedenborg, another nexus I would love to explore if there are any heideggerians or swedenborgians, and even if there aren't if I can be tolerated. Best introduction to this material is tom cheetham's "all the world an icon." And william chittick's volume on ibn arabi is sublime. izutsu's book opens with this: I Dream and Reality So-called ‘reality’, the sensible world which surrounds us and which we are accustomed to regard as ‘reality’, is, for Ibn ‘Arab!, but a dream. We perceive by the senses a large number of things, distinguish them one from another, put them in order by our reason, and thus end up by establishing something solid around us. We call that construct ‘reality’ and do not doubt that it is real. According to Ibn ‘Arabi, however, that kind of ‘reality’ is not reality in the true sense of the word. In other terms, such a thing is not Being (wujiid) as it really is. Living as we do in this phenomenal world, Being in its metaphysical reality is no less imperceptible to us than phenomenal things are in their phenomenal reality to a man who is asleep and dreaming of them. Quoting the famous Tradition, ‘All men are asleep (in this world); only when they die, do they wake up,’ he remarks: The world is an illusion; it has no real existence. And this is what is meant by ‘imagination’ (khayal). For you just imagine that it (i.e., the world) is an autonomous reality quite different from and independent of the absolute Reality, while in truth it is nothing of the sort1. . . . Know that you yourself are an imagination. And everything that you perceive and say to yourself, ‘this is not me’, is also an imagination. So that the whole world of existence is imagination within imagination.2 What, then, should we do, if what we have taken for ‘reality’ is but a dream, not the real form of Being, but something illusory? Should we abandon once for all this illusory world and go out of it in search of an entirely different world, a really real world? Ibn ‘Arab! does not take such a position, because, in his view, ‘dream’, ‘illusion’ or ‘imagination’ does not mean something valueless or false; it simply means ‘being a symbolic reflection of something truly real’. The so-called ‘reality’ certainly is not the true Reality, but this “must not be taken to mean that it is merely a vain and groundless thing. The so-called ‘reality’, though it is not the Reality itself, vaguely and indistinctively reflects the latter on the level of imagination. It is, in other words, a symbolic representation of the Reality. Excerpt From: Toshihiko Izutsu. “Toshihiko Izutsu Sufism And Taoism.” My interest here is not simply to deconstruct and understand the imaginal and symbolic nature of the reality we perceive, but to take hold of the machinery generating this imaginal world and tweak it, bend the rules like morpheus. Talk to angels like swedenborg, visit heaven and hell like blake. Go for magic carpet rides, rub the lamp and open the treasure house. There is no "magic" here which contradicts the laws of physics, no levitation or passing through walls, though there is much conjuring. Lastly I want to emphasize ibn arabi's comment that life is a dream from which we wake up at death. All stories about heaven and hell and life after death are metaphors. One dies to ego and wakes up to the divine presence. The day of reckoning resembles the confrontation with ego many experience through psychedelics. The elaborate egyptian death rites all actually refer to the passing over of the ego into cosmic consciousness. And so on. Hey, thanks for listening! terry

That's a lot of stuff, typically seen over years, some you'll like and keep, some you'll conclude are not worth you time but you can't do all at once. Your family and your studies are the most important thing, so you need to pick one thing, can't do everything in life at the same timem Why not start small, see if you can sustain an 20 min daily practice? Tbh in your shoes I'd look for stuff that are easy to integrate, eg with two daughters will you have time to maintain a dream journal each morning instead of making breakfast and taking them to school? Lucid dreaming lowers your quality of sleep, just wear a fitbit and measure your "deep sleep" time, when you're lucid, it will be lower and we don't need only REM sleep to wake up refreshed... Lucid dreaming may make you feel tired, especially given your busy schedule. Same applies to journeying in your sleep time. So why not do each day 20 mins of meditation on breath or 20 mins of insight meditation or 20 mins walking meditation ? As you need a community to practice with anyhow, I'd say knock some doors close to where you live. Try a Zen dojo, meditation centres, Qigong classes and whoever teacher you like more, start with that. There's no reason to try all at once, take your time.

I did a lot of LD in my twenties, primarily inspired by Carlos Castaneda’s books. One of the tips I found very useful - suggestion before going to sleep to “wake up” in the dreams that come. And also, when dreaming, remember to look at my palms. It worked like a charm. But it took a bit of time. Initially I’d wake up and immediately write down my dreams in a dream journal. One day, I remembered to look at my palms and that triggered the realization that I was dreaming. I became lucid. I flew high in the sky, and initially I’d forget that it was a dream and start to free fall, and then half way down, I’d remember and fly again. I met teachers, got some lessons. Worked on controlling the dream environments. Dr Stephen LaBerge’s books were very helpful. Also the Tibetan book of dream yoga was helpful as well. But one of my my most powerful dream teachings was after i had stopped trying to induce LDs. Many years later (almost 2 decades later), the lucidity came back as a result of nondual self-inquiry. There was a breakthrough after which I remained aware through dreaming and deep sleep. The clarity of this kind surpassed manifold the clarity of lucid dreams in my experience.

Maybe the Greek island of Santorini? "The beaches of Santorini are unlike most other beaches in Greece due to their special geological features. Black and red volcanic pebbles cover the shores of the beaches with a backdrop of magnificent white cliffs. This lovely peaceful island is one of the most romantic destinations in the Mediterranean. Couples from all over the world honeymoon here because the sunsets are so incredibly spectacular, and along with the scenery exquisite, the air is filled with the fragrant scent of herbs and flowers. Oh and for cat lovers, it’s a dream come true! Santorini is home to an unbelievable number of stray cats much like the famous Japanese ‘cat island’ of Tashirojima. The island is awash with blue domed Byzantine churches rounding off white villages that look they have been painted by cubist architects then decorated with bougainvillea and cats. It’s a place to enjoy freshly caught fish and local wine by the water’s edge, as the local Orthodox priest chats with villagers while cats rub against your legs looking for tit-bits. It was once said of these cats, that during their catnaps they dream of the days when they were worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and didn’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers for food." The Cats of Santorini Island I guess the photos depicted in that link are of similar quality to those in your book.

Maybe the Greek island of Santorini? "The beaches of Santorini are unlike most other beaches in Greece due to their special geological features. Black and red volcanic pebbles cover the shores of the beaches with a backdrop of magnificent white cliffs. This lovely peaceful island is one of the most romantic destinations in the Mediterranean. Couples from all over the world honeymoon here because the sunsets are so incredibly spectacular, and along with the scenery exquisite, the air is filled with the fragrant scent of herbs and flowers. Oh and for cat lovers, it’s a dream come true! Santorini is home to an unbelievable number of stray cats much like the famous Japanese ‘cat island’ of Tashirojima. The island is awash with blue domed Byzantine churches rounding off white villages that look they have been painted by cubist architects then decorated with bougainvillea and cats. It’s a place to enjoy freshly caught fish and local wine by the water’s edge, as the local Orthodox priest chats with villagers while cats rub against your legs looking for tit-bits. It was once said of these cats, that during their catnaps they dream of the days when they were worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and didn’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers for food." The Cats of Santorini Island I guess the photos of in that link are of similar quality to those in your book. Santorini is one place I'll travel to for sure!

For many people, lucid dreaming and astral projection are a good way to get in touch with psychic powers. Space trips are my favourites! 🙂 To illustrate, I once found myself on a planet which (in my very real-feeling dream) I understood was orbiting a red dwarf that was in turn circling our Sun at a distance of over one light year. I remember looking at this planet's crimson star hovering in the sky from some kind of elevator platform. As I typically experience during such trips, I felt incredibly centered, and focussed in my lower dantian -- far beyond what I have achieved in my waking life so far. In this particular case, the sensation may have been further amplified by the artificial gravity field of the elevator platform, though. Standing on it, I was travelling through a system of looping tubes that interconnected the cities and tall buildings on the surface of the planet -- without me ever loosing the sensation of being upright! Years later I learnt that Nibiru expert Andy Lloyd assumes this legendary planet to orbit a binary to our Sun. https://darkstar1.co.uk/ The theory of a red or brown dwarf star circling our Sun was actually quite popular with astronomers in the last century. It was called 'Dark Star' and 'Nemesis'. While no longer predominant, this theory still finds support by a number of scientists. Here you see my approximate artistic rendition of the city I saw in my dream (creating digital art being one of my various interests).

ah, so you come barging in my DM like an angry toddler and now demand that I am nice to you. dream on master solo, I won't give in to tantrums, neither from real toddlers nor from you.

Respect to all …. I don't think there really is something separate called the alaya or substrate consciousness … it's just that whatever we call consciousness (and even that is up for debate) has this quality of being able to store form, energy and feeling arising from past experiences. It's an empirical fact that if we close our eyes and just sit for a while all sorts of images, scenes, thoughts, feelings and emotions come bubbling up. So in effect, whether we want it or not, we live partly with the immediately 'real' – what we would call the external environment (or something similar) and also a ghost-world of resonances and reverberations, mood and influence. Why? Why should this be? Does it serve any purpose? I mean, when we learn from other threads on here that a man can train himself to suck milk up his penis – why would a fleeting feeling drifting in the wind matter at all? Does it matter that we dream? Does it matter that we interface with a chaos of form in shamanic trance states? Does anything matter? Why, beyond all, do we find ourselves bumbling along in the substrate? Especially when we are told it is all delusion. If we woke, would we still dream? And then why do we dream of waking anyway? I would that one day I should wake … then why do I sleep at all? An aspiration is a kind of dream. Let us then pray for something perfect. If I were to work at all it would be on this. Immortality. If I were not to work … I would sip wine … by mouth.

Munroe would probably beg to differ with you, at least as far as the realm in which he pinched the person's buttocks. That's exactly what he was trying to verify, was his dream-like experience of floating and traveling and being at someone's house an experience of the real world, or of something else? He satisfied himself that it was this world, with that experiment. I think there are others that make the same claim, though I don't know that for sure. I myself have never been tempted to experiment with "lucid dreaming", with trying to separate some aspect of myself from the physical body and travel around.

Not to much sir, but a little. On happiness: I have heard that we all have a baseline. Events can draw us down or lift us up, but only for a while; sooner or later we return to our «natural state.» I had a dream about this, now i wish i remember it. On spolitude or leaving the tribe: this one is pretty universal, I think. We have shamans going to the wildernes before returning, initiation/comming of age rituals, the koryos (indo-european in origin, but found in many decended cultures), monks, Jesus in the desert… I am sure Nungalina knows of a million others. Interrestingly, depressed people aslo find a need for solitude (nedlesset to say: no medical advice here), and i have also heard that the dreadfull, sterile enviorment in hospitals are designed that way for a reason: because a low stimuli enviorment have a healing effect. So maybe it is a way to fine, or get in tune, with our true self (not the persona)? If we can live in bliss all the time? My western mind says no, day is defined by night, but then again, there certainly seem to be a few gems out there who are able to achieve both higher and longer periods of bliss.

Albert Einstein's IQ was 163. Marilyn Monroe's was 168. So much for the dumb blonde. She had about 400 books in her personal library, mostly quality fiction, some nonfiction. She wrote poetry. Here's a few of her poems: *** O, Time Be Kind Help this weary being To forget what is sad to remember Lose my loneliness, Ease my mind, While you eat my flesh. *** Life, I am of both your directions Existing more with the cold frost Strong as a cobweb in the wind Hanging downward the most Somehow remaining Those beaded rays have the colors I've seen in paintings--ah life They have cheated you Thinner than a cobwebs's thread Sheerer than any- But it did attach itself And held fast in strong winds And singed by the leaping hot fires Life - of which at singular times I am of both your directions - Somehow I remain hanging downward the most As both of your directions pull me. *** I left my home of green rough wood, A blue velvet couch. I dream till now A shiny dark bush Just left of the door. Down the walk Clickity clack As my doll in her carriage Went over the cracks- "We'll go far away." *** Don't cry my doll Don't cry I hold you and rock you to sleep Hush hush I'm pretending now I'm not your mother who died. *** The smart one says the eye is not truly round. His are, though, fat with looking.

In the classic geocentric Western cosmology developed from Plato and Aristotle, the realm of the four elements below the lunar sphere is where things are impermanent and constantly changing. Everything from the moon outward is eternal. This is the cosmology that was basically standard up until Copernicus. You see it all over ancient and medieval literature, e.g. Dante's Divine Comedy. A short and sweet summary can be found in the Dream of Scipio at the end of Cicero's Republic. The commentary on this passage by Macrobius was hugely important for transmitting this cosmology to the Latin-speaking world.

“That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you re member having dreamt, that built your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.” ― Kahlil Gibran

Hey, I'm someone who's been trying to find a way to reach the stage of turning comprehension directly into strength for years, yet have not found the start of a path that doesn't end. I believe comprehension is my strength, and making that literal is my dream. Please guide me!

I was going to sleep and i imagined i did not have a body or a mind , I stayed a "witness" through the whole time , My entire body began to shake ,I was fighting to stay awake , the more awake i stayed the more stronger the vibrations got .. I felt my body shift to the right but after it went back to the body , when it went back to the body i realized i was dreaming , after i got lost into my fears and anger inside the dream . I woke up again , i tried going back to sleep and i felt my entire body shake. Right now i feel my lower chakra vibrate" I was awake the entire time , even while going to sleep , I want to know why my entire body felt vibrations? ohhhh man i wish i can conquer my fears, one day i will lol!!!!!! I was reading Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche book on dream yoga , And it said nothing about strong vibrations . He just said to remain conscious while going to sleep . He says through strong practice i might attain "clear light dreams"

Alchemy in Buddhist tantra in the main is more interested in attaining the rainbow body (of light). Ref. Apech's post above. This is one of the reasons dream yoga is a core practice in most tantric traditions. To overcome physical limitations of the body, some of the practices assist the initiate to apply dream yoga in creating a mandala (some sects use the energy of sound) and simultaneously, an ethereal, visceral body of light (at the development stages during the phases of cultivating the outer tantras (kriya, charya and yoga tantras) vis a vis the path of purification initially, and later, path of transformation). When the master ascertains the readiness of the initiate, he or she is transferred culmination practices (abisheka) of inner tantras vis a vis mahayoga and anuyoga, both classed as 'paths of transformation' - this is the completion stage where signs of stability in manifest body of light gradually seeps into the physical world. The masters will be able to notice the onset of this by confirming the presence of shimmering holograms of light around the person, and later (usually years later) a more stable halo will be revealed as enveloping the upper body as the cultivated visceral body merge in subtler and subtler detail with the its physical counterpart. Liberation, Dharmakaya, Rigpa is the ultimate fruition of the culmination of Atiyoga, the ninth and final vehicle, which is the vehicle that Dzogchen places the most emphasis on. Other schools and traditions have varying approaches to this practice. I think Western occult traditions also promote a form of dream yoga. In dream yoga one is basically manipulating energies in lucid dream states that are suffused with limitless potentialities, that otherwise is not accessible by the ordinary waking mind and body. In those portals of limitless potential nothing is impossible, so the practitioner has licence to explore all sorts of possibilities and scenarios as a means to expand physical limits imposed by habitual tendencies. This is the key difference (an important one) between the Buddhist approach and others who claim to achieve results thru various natural consciousness-altering substances.

The history of Christianity, especially imperial/Nicene Christianity, is often framed with a sharp division between Christians and "pagans", that required everyone to choose one camp to the exclusion of the other. Sometimes this was true but I think often things were considerably more fluid. The case of Synesius of Cyrene offers a really interesting case. Synesius was a Platonist and disciple of Hypatia whose rhetorical skills won him admiration in the Alexandrian Christian community, to the point that Pope Theophilus of Alexandria agreed to make Synesius bishop of Ptolemais. Did Synesius reject his earlier views to accept this office? Not at all. We have an open letter he wrote to his brother which states clearly that he refused to accept the office unless, 1. he was allowed to remain married to his wife and 2. well, read the following: Basically, he retained his Platonist convictions in pre-existence of souls and the eternity of the world, and rejected the bodily resurrection as anything more than an allegory. Pope Theophilus, who is often regarded as stringently orthodox, and whose nephew Cyril would succeed him and take orthodox militancy to infamous heights, nonetheless accepted Synesius' preconditions. Synesius' last letter, on his deathbed, was a fond farewell letter to his teacher Hypatia who would later be murdered by Cyril's followers. For those interested in hearing more, the SHWEP had a great interview about Synesius discussing his life and work, that you can listen to here: https://shwep.net/podcast/jay-bregman-on-synesius-of-cyrene/ Synesius' fascinating essay On Dreams, a really interesting collection of dream and divination lore and speculation, can be read free online here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv9b2wvp

It's hard to generalize but at least some of them did. The Stoic explanations of divination based on cosmic sympathy were influential for later Platonists. I think Synesius' preference for dream divination over, say, haruspicy, has something to do with his lineage- his teacher Hypatia was in the vein of Plotinus and Porphyry, who were not entirely keen on the bloody sacrifices of traditional rituals, whereas Iamblichus was a fierce defender of them.

Is interesting. Don't need to express your condolences because it is not needed. I never have any attachment to her. It is even less, or non-existence, after I have found my Dharma gate at the age of 18. She was the one who initiated the cycle of Karma to my family. After my kundalini energy rising and to have penetrated the first skandha of forms, I felt like I have no family members, period. I still feel like I have no family members. I respect my parents because they didn't give me hard times when my life wasn't going well. I never want to see them suffer. Ironically, I have been persistently dreaming about this European old lady and she has a pair of blue eyes. In a way, I felt like she was my grandma that I never really have. Yet, I felt like I and her shared something deeper. This figure only showing herself after my "enlightenment" though, some 15+ years ago. The other day I dream of her and asking me "how would you like your old self back?" She said this because she was my "boss." Is interesting that 2 days ago I dream that my father was taking money away from me because he needed the money to fix my grandma's teeth. I was furious when I realized he was using my money this way. A teeth dream would often represent death in the family, especially dealing with dreaming about losing one's teeth. Because I have no attachment to her, I didn't dream of losing my teeth. Instead, I dream of her losing her own teeth (this may imply that her sons and daughters would not miss her much). And I was told that she just passed away today at the age of late 80s and she has terminal cancer. Great, I have to attend her funeral. This is the person who brought so much suffering, jealousy, and contempt to her family members. No, she never believed in the Dharma because she was still hording all of her material possessions. I doubt that she would leave anything for her Dharma warrior grandson (me). She was as mean as ever even to her home nurse. Sigh...... Wondering if I would see her spirit in my dreams......something I doubt since we have a completely different consciousness vibrational state.

About 12 years back I was repeating a mantra silently as a yogic meditative, concentration exercise. Sometimes this practice would make me sleepy, and I was at that point between being awake and falling asleep where dream type images arise and mix with wakeful consciousness where your wakeful mind identifies the images as unreal, dream images and says, - hey you’re starting to fall asleep again come back to the mantra. All of a sudden something different arose that was not like the dream images - a female presence who looked like images I had seen of Kuan Yin. I don’t recall any words transmitted only feelings. It just made me smile and feel good. It was a feminine presence that primarily conveyed a sense of loving kindness and compassion but there was even a small portion of it containing a feeling of sensuality as well. For a long time after this anytime I saw a picture of Kuan Yin or thought of an image of her I would get the same pleasant smiling experience that would make me thankful for the experience and feel a sense of compassion towards others. Over the years since, this sense when viewing or remembering her image has faded. The mantra I was doing at the time was a Sanskrit yogic bija mantra (not a Buddhist mantra or dharani ). I was not looking for any experience like this at the time and really have no religious or cultural background to explain this experience. The recurring pleasant feelings when seeing her image did not involve practicing the mantra or meditation just viewing or remembering her image. Curious whether this type of experience has any context within Buddhism that would help me understand it or put it into perspective.

Week 3 Observations Starting to see blue aura around fingers, feeling like I’m holding and pressing against a balloon between my hands during MGM, feels like my field of view is getting wider (15 mins) First time seeing FPCK sky blue colour during BTB (25 mins) Energy radiating from upper back and electric feeling in laogong during MHPeach (15 mins) Sometimes wind in ears and legs shaking during SMWU3 Sometimes intense tongue spasms in MSW3 More FPCK sky blue colour when eyes are closed during practice Stronger electric feeling in laogong throughout the day Bags under eyes almost completely gone Blue colour starting to guide and show me how fast to do movements during practice Sometimes see world through “blue filter” when finishing meditation When I do MGM outside I can see bright particles flying around in between my hands Pulsing sensation like a heartbeat felt in LDT during MHPearl supine No more high pitched sound, only cricket/cicada sound Hearing has gotten better. I can hear chickens somewhere in the neighbourhood at 4:30am, sometimes keeps me up at night! Hands sometimes glow when I bring them near closed eyes during practice Sometimes my body aches in the area I had a shingles outbreak Scars on my palms seem to be disappearing, but need to keep an eye on it and compare over time to confirm I had the first nightmare since starting FPCK. I was working in a kitchen with a lot of live crabs and one escaped into the garden. When I went to get it back the crab chased me around then went to get its friends to chase me around. I don’t have a fear of crabs, but I was scared of getting pinched! Normally when I experience fear in dreams/nightmares I wake up when confronted with monsters/demons/ghosts/possessed people. However this time instead of waking up I found a shovel in my dream and managed to whack the crabs. It was the first time in a dream/nightmare where I was able to confront and successfully deal with something that was chasing me. Dreams are becoming like lessons. In one dream I was a drunk Marlon Brando during filming on set who couldn’t do what the director wanted, in another dream I had to sacrifice myself to vampires to save my friends who were running away. Got drunk then meditated, ended up levitating into traffic I had my first dream about FPCK where I was in a public park and wanted to heal a dog’s foot but was too self conscious and shy to do FPCK in public. I had a nightmare that woke me up. I was in my room in an apartment and this kid from the building next door came in, I remember him being Indian. I ignored them because somehow I knew something bad was going to happen to them that day and I shouldn’t interfere and just let nature take it’s course. Then I started writing some words on a piece of paper with watercolour brush while they left. I forgot what words or phrase in English it was but the first letter was S. For some reason I wrote the S last and made it much bigger than the other letters. I made a mistake and had to keep going over it. In the end it somehow looked like Chinese calligraphy and when I finished I heard kids screaming from the street outside. I then thought I should have done something to keep that neighbours kid from leaving so I could have prevented this from happening. I looked out the window and the kid’s spirit was flying up the side of the building, but he was much lighter complexion and had blonde hair. I screamed in my dream then woke up freezing cold and shivering, while exhaling so loud and heavily. I could also feel some energy moving around my back. It happened around 6:30am.

Dreams have always been central to my process of life. Interesting fact about me is that my first memory in this life is of a lucid dream that prompted an OBE. I was 4ish. I favor and deeply resonate with the Tibetan reality paradigm that considers waking life to be a shared dream state. It fits how we become aware in life once it's already ongoing. And when dreams start, they (for me) never start 'at the beginning', i always become aware in the dream once it's ongoing and already in process... i instrinsically find that extremely telling and important. Up until the last five years or so, I was lucid in dreams each night. Often choosing not top affect the dreamscape, aside from my decisions and being aware that i was engaged in a dream while it was active... Occasionally i would influence an aspect of the dreamscape, the environment, or characters appearing... but usually i would allow the scene to unfold while aware and then react as i chose within that framework. Lately, dreaming has been the opposite. The dreams are utterly absorbing and seem completely real while engaged in them, i experience awareness to the point of reacting as i do in waking life, though i have no idea it is occuring in a dream realm until waking. Quite disorienting for me after 50 years of lucidity, but i welcome it as a natural progression. One of my most intense lucid dreams followed me out of sleep and into the waking world. Full hypnogogic reality waking vision. One of two that are central reasons i suspect i so resonate with the Tibetan notion of the shared dreaming state of waking reality. Anyway, thanks for sharing @Owledge. Fascinating topic and a really potent share.