Search the Community

I don't think that's a necessary consequence. I think a change from considering some things to be internal to your being and others to be external to considering all things to be beyond the self-other boundary is a very very subtle change. It's almost no change at all. Some would say it's not even a change. When I am dreaming, I usually assume the dream world exist in the same way this waking world exists here, externally, independently objectively and so on (well that's not entirely true, but let's simplify). Suppose I become lucid and realize I am dreaming. Suddenly I realize that everything that appears, however legitimately and "physically-looking" it is, is actually a product of my dreaming mind. That can be a very mind-blowing awakening because things in my dream can look so crispy clear, I would swear they were real physical things, so then realizing they are not can be a mix of exhilaration and fear, or maybe not so much, depending on the state of mind I am in. And then what? Do things change? Do things become difficult? Not to me. I can explore the world. Everything is more or less the same. I can chat with people. I can ride the bus. The only difference is that now I can do more things. I can now disappear and reappear somewhere else. I can hypnotize people effortlessly (all the people in the dream seemingly want to do the same things I want to do and I don't have to make any kind of obvious hypnotic effort, but the hypnotic effect just appears on its own). If I am not lucid, this is less likely. If I am not lucid, someone might be arguing with me. But if I am, usually there is no argument. So if I say, "we are going here" we are going there. People don't tell me "no we are not going there." They do exactly as I say and they enjoy it. So being lucid does make things different but I wouldn't call those differences "difficult." So I just described all that in terms of dreaming, because I think it's easier to think about it that way, when it's somewhat removed and compartmentalized from this here occurrence.

Is it not better, to have lived a rich life, pusuing some crazy irrational but beautiful dream ?

It's always nice to hear from a great expert on these things. You're lucky, I did you a special favor and went and looked up jhanas. I see it's typical Buddhist stuff with some truth using lots of wordiness with some bullshit heaped on top to hide the truth. I read this about the four jhanas and I see it is a fairly good description of the enlightenment experience, and I like the way they use the word rapture So this is what the enlightenment experience is basically like. Except the Wikipedia article says this about it: Well maybe for some they can arrive at these feelings via meditation but in the enlightenment experience they happen all together, one followed immediately by the next, in a smooth progression, with the whole thing taking several days. Now it could be that some meditators can achieve these states by meditating on them but that seems dumb to me, the enlightenment experience can happen at any time, whether on is meditating at that moment or not; and in my meditations there were no such silly goals or objects of meditation, we simple meditated as no thinking, no mind, and simply focussed on the energy task at hand, if there was one, the 'energy task' being dictated by the particular posture being used at the moment. Only poor suffering Buddhists would actually focus on those states as a meditation, which is blatantly a type of desire. So why do I say it is an enlightenment experience? Well for one things others have described similar experiences and termed them to be enlightenment, and another is that it ends up making a person a Boddhisattva, which even the Buddhists recognize as an enlightened state, which it is, and it's a pretty stupid state too. What's even more stupid is Eeyore saying it's not enlightenment. They say Buddha was 'fully' enlightened, whatever that is supposed to mean. OK, fine, one can go further, and will, because the experience ignites certain unavoidable and powerful alchemical changes in a person which results in what are sometimes pathetically called 'realizations' All I know from experience is that my teacher was so psychic that he was omniscient, and he became a high level immortal when he died. The great expert, Eeyore, must know how immortals sometimes talk to bozos: "HAHAHAHA, FU, HAHAHAHA, I COULD SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG, HAHAHAHA!" You may have seen a representation of this attitude in the cinema. I read about a Hindu yogi who seemed to be in a permanent state of rapture, with his beautific smile and non thoughts. You could take him to a street corner in the city and put his right arm up in the air and leave him there. An hour later you could come back and he would still be standing on the corner with his arm up in the air and an idiotic grin on his face. Personally I think it's better to get beyond that and be able to wipe your own butt. Next we have this gem: I suppose Eeyore is referring to me with this since he was quoting me, but here the great expert appears to be confused again. I didn't dream up or wish or even believe for a long time what I was, it took some convincing by my guardian, an ancient and very powerful dragon, who I call by the nickname Impending Death, who snuffed the most powerful Kahuna in the Pacific who was screwing with me and who challenged him. I also think people who read about and use the world 'self','true self', 'non self' in spiritual discussions are bozos. HAHAHAHA Thanks for the enterntainment. Eeyore, if you are looking for more to crap on please visit my dragon thread, thank you.

Hi Mantis, The part that really stands out to me is the numb feeling that you say has some relation to your waking life. And how the murders seem motivated by the desire to feel, the desire not to be numb. I'd start there. Perhaps do some journaling or active imagination of sorts (reenter the dream as kind of a daydream in waking life and see where it takes you) focusing on the numbness. Numbness is interesting because it represents a kind of psychic edge. There's a defensiveness there. You feel numb because a part of you, anyway, doesn't want to feel. The big question, of course, is what lies beyond the numbness. What would you feel if you were willing to feel into the numb areas? You might be numb, but at least you aren't numb to your numbness if you get my meaning. You are willing to be aware of the numbness. Dreaming about the numbness seems to suggest that you are ready to go beyond whatever this numbness is in your waking life. Several people have alluded to the idea that you might be murdering parts of yourself. One of my favorite ways to look at dreams is to imagine that all the parts are parts of ourselves. In other words, it's all you. Can you see a part of yourself that's the korean girl, the mother figure, the voice, powerful mother nature figure, etc? As well, of course, as the murderer and the murdered. Can you locate these parts of yourself? What associations do you have with each of these characters? Do you see yourself in any of them in your ordinary life? Are any of these characters, perhaps, hidden--up till now--aspects of yourself that your dream is asking you to develop? To be...um, less numb to? And who, in particular, is that Korean girl you morph into through the process of rebirth? Perhaps you don't need to wait until you die for the rebirth to take place. Just a thought. Liminal

If it were my dream (how I was taught to approach talking about anyone else's dream, since you are not me, maybe DP was in my class hehe) I would think it was me killing off a bunch of unneeded ego aspects. Then eventually I had done enough for now, and then "I" had to die. If I had been doing extra spiritual work lately this might be the case. If however I was really angry lately, I would interpret it more as me trying to destroy aspects of myself which anger me, or perhaps illusions.

Im no certified expert, but I do spend alot of time watching my dreamscapes while semi-awake. I think the murder plot line was borrowed from some t.v. show that you watched, but the wily, kind of sociopath is an aspect of yourself. If it were my dream, I would be concerned about the type of wrangling and slipperyness to get away with the behavior. In society, we can get away with things, we can be bad or selfish and get away with it, but in "reality" we dont get away with it. The cultivation path takes you from insincerity to sincerity, and this entire dreamscape is a kind of negative karma resolving itself with the mother's voice and the rebirth. But there is some pretty strong karma exhibited in this dream, so it will likely need more resolution in the future. Maybe there is some aspect of your life you are requiring a resolve to more sincerity, less self-serving dealings.

I wouldn't dream of it, sir, but its good to be occasionally reminded of the obvious. wishing you a splendid time on TDB.

Hi Vajra Fist, I'm glad you were able to visit Stonehenge, discern the energy, its significance, and hopefully get some good FP Qigong practice in while you were there. Beautiful photo, by the way! I hope that the stones were not roped or chained off as it had been in the mid- and late 90's and that you were able to get down close "and personal" to the stone formations. I first visited Stonehenge in 1995 and unfortunately, the govt. had just cordoned off the stone formation because that summer some pathetic monkeys tried to haul down some of the raised horizontally placed stones with chains and tackle and pick up trucks. I could sense a unique 'turning qi' of the place. It was like the vibration you get from turning one of those large prayer wheels in Nepal. It was somewhat faint, but I imagine in the past the turning would have been a roar. The impression I got from it was that it is some sort of energy mechanism that still serves a purpose in the world even today. Perhaps when it one day fails, there will be changes to our society or even natural disasters. I understand what you call "turning qi" present at Stonehenge and would agree with thematic description. If you were able to get inside the circular formation and spend time at the center of the stone circle, you can feel the energy of the portal with more intensity. Outside and at a distance, the energy is indeed faint. However, even at a great distance, I found, so long as I was able to see the formation, I felt the wide, turning energy. "Portal" is the best word in English that I can find that closely describes the "geomantric" power and function of Stonehenge. Powerful portal. And I will say this: the design of the stone circle is congruent with Chinese 5 Element Theory. Hint: study the 5 of Disks in the Crowley Tarot deck...and see if it connects you to the Stonehenge energy. Many alchemic unions and operations were consummated at Stonehenge by the ancients there. btw, my deepest intuition, furthered and affirmed by oracular devices, is that women Druids also led and conducted divinations--and fertility rights-- by drawing down the energy of the heavens to the earth--to the literal ground at Stonehenge...conducted by massive wands as long as military spears. Thanks for inspiring me to look into ancient function of Stonehenge. And thanks very much for sharing with the thread the "Weightless" by Marconi Union--and the online article describing the intresting research conducted by the British Academy of Sound Therapy. I listened to the full 8 min. version several times, and practiced both Tai Chi form and FP Qigong to it. It is indeed very, very relaxing and conducive for meditation and FP Qigong--but I wouldn't go so far to say (and I don't know how the British Academy of Sound Therapy or any persons can definitively declare) that "Weightless" is the most relaxing in the world or the most relaxing song ever composed. I understand they have their "scientific" parameters and applied them to lots of songs. But I strongly disagree with their theory that not having a repeating melody relaxes the mind more because the mind isn't stressing itself out anticipating the repeated pattern of notes. I believe that there are melodies, with repeating combinations of musical notes that optimally relax the human organism. For example, one of the most relaxing songs that I fortuitously discovered at random in 1987 was an instrument by composed by Vangelis in 1977 called, "Reve" (means "dream" in French), which does have a beautiful melody with repeating "riffs". I instantly loved "Reve" and a couple of years later licensed and used as background music behind my final flow of the Yang Short Form and Yang Long Form on my two top-selling instructional Tai Chi DVD's. This is "Reve", although it has more treble and less bass than the original vinyl recording on the Vangelis 12' album "Opera Sauvage", and thus sounds "tinny" to me: And my Tai Chi For Health dvd's (all-time best-selling in the English language from 1991 to this very day, btw) are available at my website: www.taichimania.com/taichi_catalog.html Another favorite collection of music that I find most relaxing and great to practice Qigong to the album "Transparent Music" by English pedal steel guitarist B.J. Cole. The album contains his interpretations of classical to contemporary music that have a strong Celtic flavor--and not just suggested by his artwork on his DVD case. His music is utterly transformative and super-relaxing because the brain is induced into relaxation/somnambulism because it recognizes the traditional renditions of these songs and the comfort of the familiar plus the expansive, extended duration of every note created by the pedal steel guitar--PLUS the unique and exclusive ability of that instrument to "bend a harmony like toffee" and to slide a chord enables him to make a beautiful song more beautiful, an eerie song more eerie and yet even more relaxing--e.g., Satie 's Gnossiene Nos. 3 and 5. I found on Youtube only 2 of the 10 or so tracks on the album: 01 Clair De Lune: 03 Pavane Pour Une Enfante Defunte : Try to find the rest, or purchase the album. It's worth it: 02 Window On The Deep 04 Slight Rhapsody 05 Gnossienne No.5 (Eric Satie like you've neve heard) 06 Ely Cathedral 08 Gnossienne No.3 (Eric Satie like you've neve heard) I had corresponded with B.J. Cole many years ago when I discovered Transparent Music and he said back then that he was up for composing new music as accompaniment for Tai Chi ad Qigong practice. I will soon revisit the idea of a collaboration with him. But thanks very much again for that article, for I am now exploring the "Top Ten" most relaxing songs listed in it--and I advise all FP pracittioners who liked to practice to music to check out this list of TOP 10 MOST RELAXING TRACKS: 1. Marconi Union - Weightless 2. Airstream - Electra 3. DJ Shah - Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix) 4. Enya - Watermark 5. Coldplay - Strawberry Swing 6. Barcelona - Please Don't Go 7. All Saints - Pure Shores 8. AdelevSomeone Like You 9. Mozart - Canzonetta Sull'aria 10. Cafe Del Mar - We Can Fly Best Regards, Sifu Terry P.S. Note to all: FLYING PHOENIX QIGONG WORKSHOP 22+ hours of sublime, transformative instruction and practice will take place at Eastover Estate & Retreat in Lenox, MA on NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 3 http://www.eastover.com/workshop/flying-phoenix-qigong-with-master-terence-dunn.html

Hi Hanuman, Dream on cyclically Monkey God. There is no end to knowledge. So forever so you will be learning - this life, next life... ? But of course. - LimA

Excess salt will be removed various ways from our body. Not a serious problem. I have reduced my salt intake because excessive salt causes me to dream. No, I can't explain that.

Very nice But after waking up from the dream, who are you? You are also emptiness.(awareness only) Peace

That just means you havent completed training your breath Times when I am in good training...do not move a muscle and have meditative breath all night (my ex told me that's how she knew if my training was in good shape or not.) Maybe average 40-60 second breaths for meditative session for a couple months, and that will be about where this sort of thing will happen. They key is not using anywhere that air actually touches when considering how the air should be moved through the system. its simply most efficient to use the diaphragm, and to make sure the tendon attachments are focused on when drawing air, attached to the front of the spine. The qihai and huiyin fulfill the compression of the gut which increases the energetic output of the practice, making greater gains to gung. After depth is developed, the duration of breath able to be comfortably achieved is partly a function of the gung built. Do something that hurts or detracts from gung at this point and you necessarily and directly affect the duration of breath able to be comfortably sustained. The olfactory nerve has a 40 cycles/sec resonance that is an energy-feedback wiggle-potential created by this action. The amount of this can be considered resistance in the context of the ohm's law equation. All sensate input can, to an extent, but the breath is the loudest signal that we have the most direct control over, barring actual normal daily movement. The energy potential generated utilized by this neural processing does not simply disappear when the cortex processes the current air-flow-state - it takes part in the dynamic dance of the neural pathways. Without getting too deeply into those weeds, a simplified observation of what happens is that the more sensate input is processed, the higher propensity for random thought to manifest when there is presently none - a sort of neural crosstalk takes place and the bubbles of thoughtform appear and percolate up to higher brain centers that trigger the random thought. (How much time spent daydreaming vs how much time spent focusing are also contributors here...) The only way to achieve this is through time and practice. When the sense nerve dynamic is sufficiently enough and regularly enough calmed, then there is some further refinement to disconnect any feelings of air; after that, a disconnect of the motions of breathing from any concept of moving air - this is a sort of breathless state, but in reality it is not, its just a very well harmonized set of motions becoming programmed into the medulla - this gets borne out by there being meditative breath, no movement or dreams, while sleeping. Time itself gets a little funny, sleep does not feel long, meditation does not feel long, cant tell the difference all that much between 20 minutes and 2 hours. Once all the aforementioned is completed, then here's where there is the concept of a thoughtform bubble. It forms as a soda bubble forms on the side of a glass, detaches and drifts upward and becomes a thought. With more training, then the bubble can be discerned from its energetic imprint, and the phenomena is now like squeezing a balloon in one's hand, until a pocket of air forms in some location and bulges out the side - pop! Then after a while, one can learn to reverse the energy-phase of the operation and re-absorb the forming and protruding thoughtform-bubble into the resonance of the niwan, as relaxing the fist with the balloon in it, the bubble does not pop. The mind and body are at a very stable, efficient, superlatively calm state. At this point, 3+ "sessions" a day, shorter during the day, exercise, long session at night. Attacking this problem at the neural level makes these things not just repeatable, but a daily phenomenon. Pedal bike, coast, pedal bike, coast Stop pedaling, you slow down. Road of life gets steep...pedal, pedal. A little roundabout, but I had to refute the dream/breathwork correlation

Dream on... (Good night)

Had a strange dream last night. Learned something new about myself. I was in an airplane while it was falling. Pilot struggling to keep control. When it became obvious we would crash, I did three things: 1) looked at my wife and thought about how much I love her. 2) thought to myself "I wonder if I'll know when it happens?" 3) began reciting the Lord's prayer. I awoke before completing it. The third item surprised me. I did not expect that. I need to dig deeper into this...

I got bitten by a death adder on the leg in dreamland the other night. the day before, the new woman here shut me down when I tried to inform her about local snake pros and cons, re her patch she is moving into ( after asking me about the 'energy' of that place! ) .... not even allowed to mention the 's' word anymore.* I wasn't worried in dream though, I just thought; "Now, I just need to transform the venom into medicine. But then I realised I didn't know what death adder medicine is. * now she has gone and bought these to put around !

I only know very old school photography, my dad taught me when I was a kid -- we also processed and printed the photographs at home (temporarily turning the kitchen into a photo lab), that was long ago, far away. Clueless about modern tech, but I was under the impression it can do better than what I did at the age of 10 or 11 with my USSR-made FED (no joke, that's what the camera was called, after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky), rather than worse. If it takes pictures of its own dirty lens instead... I dunno. What can it be? Doesn't remind me of anything I've ever seen in real life. Does remind me of a UFO dream I had a few years ago, one of those dreams that I get a few years apart now and then that are absolutely extraordinary, you wake up and think, OK, now I'm dreaming -- and that which I just woke up from, that was reality. Which is why the picture intrigued me. But, like you, I have no idea what it "really" is.

Maybe the long version is- take your desires and opinions less seriously. No need for the dramas and ping ponging between happy and sad depending on outcomes in an uncertain world. Occasionally I'll work with the paradigm 'Take your dreams seriously and consider your life as dream'. Which I take to me look for meaning and direction from your dreams, honor them by taking action according to your interpretation. Lifewise it means looking at life happenings symbolically, as if you're just a character floating through the story, enjoy the show and look for the archetypes and hidden meanings. You can only such saying so far, but it's nice to change up ones point of view every now and then.

This communication with others durring our sleep/dreams is a very interesting aspect of our consciousness. There are a few people (and one dog) who I have pretty constant access to in dream states. We used to phone each-other (not the dog)-and check the experiences we shared. I've accepted these sorts of communications for many decades and hope that serious studies have/will be done about these incounters. (any news about this!?) It may be that we should write a book?!- I have had similar experiences with some who have died. The most striking aspect of those incounters was how tired the dead usually seemed to be and how difficult it seemed to be for them to be present in my dream state. One of the strongest was fairly recent, when my dear friend Michael Savage had been dead for about twenty days or so. His mom had been close to Allen Ginsberg through her mom being Allen's mom's very dear friend... Anyway I was sleeping on a couch at my moms when I had a very lucid visitation from Mike who had brought along Allen and Neil Cassady to show-off for me, who he was hanging with in the great beyond... I remember being dissapointed that Kerouac hadn't come too, but it seems there was a problem with JK's abilities or maybe willingness to manifest in my dream. The whole thing was funny, for the most part as if to say don't worry this ain't so bad a deal... It was THE most exciting visitation I have had while dreaming. I usually awoke with and have maintained a pretty strong memory of several of these events. It has helped me develop my ideas of my real life as consciosness being kept and shared through time and space, without the need of a body. But I am of course in no hurry to check THAT theory out any time soon. No matter what shit hits the fan this life is still more interesting than dreams or astral travel or anything else I have even heard of. edit- this next part belongs on another thread but I'll leave it here and add to the other also...it manifested and needs to be moved... The search for esoteric knowledge has been going on for many mellenia, my own for mere decades. I hope that most of the young and cock-sure seekers here, don't fade away or burn-out in the decades to come. There is always more to understand than we will ever know. And knowing is still not understanding. Knowledge is vapid and of no use if the holder of it can not or will not apply the concepts into their reality/dream state and work to make for a better understanding, not a mere accumulation of powerful ideas and states of mind, that bring them self-satisfaction, but do not change how they live and accumulate merit and kharma. When yr kharma hits yr dogma in the great beyond it is what you have done here when you had the chance that counts. Qi turns back to simple wind when blown out of one's ass... It is still just raising a stink.

Yo Thaddeus - This came up on the Now never comes- thread, theLerner suggested a new topic so I ran with it...I doubt I will give much time to experimentation on this. I can not disrupt sleep to experiment at this time, too much to do in "real time" to focus on "dream time" at this juncture...But I almost always drift off with my mind's eye on my hands... a practice I took up a few decades ago via Castanada- I don't think much has been gleaned from this in my ability to remember dreams, but I do seem to know when I'm dreaming much of the time that I dream. I have a distinct impression that when I start to go downward via stairs etc. when dreaming ... bad shit starts to happen and the dream turns "night-marish". I believe that this is due to repressed memory from some very bad experiences that I suffered in reality. Conversly, when I am high-up in my dream state -on a mountain over-looking the sea for instance I am filled with the most wonderful feelings of rapturous joy and a feeling of oneness with the whole of life... If there is a whale in the sea far below I can share a "namaste" with it . In fact such moments have been the high-light of my consciousness of late- reality being something of a grind these days...

As far as I can tell we agree on everything, when I say nothing exists I mean it in the sense of dreams and video game characters which are made of energy and information. It exists in the sense it can be experienced, and in no other sense. The Mahayana Buddhists compare the mind to a mirror which reflects reality, and it is the mirror we observe and believe to be reality itself. The sum of our total experience is purely energy and information inside our neural nets. There is no observer of the experience, rather the observer itself IS the experience that is occurring. A waking dream is a good analogy. The experience that is occurring is of the same nature of a painting of a pipe (not a pipe itself), a map of the territory (but not the territory itself), or a mirror reflecting something else (yet the reflection is not the thing reflected) We see only inside our own minds, not outside of them, so there really isn't much difference if any between waking life and and a dream. The void for is very interesting as modern science (Lawrence Krauss, Hawking, etc.) are finding that empty space is actually filled to the brim with electron/positron pairs fused together as a whole. Empty space is as full as anything can be. Random quantum vacuum fluctuations can break apart empty space itself (as it is a sea of electron/positron pairs) and generate both matter and antimatter in equal amounts, and over time must do so on scales great enough to generate an entire universe from the void. Hawking coined the term hawking radiation, at the edge of the event horizon of a singularity (black hole) the gravitational field is so strong that it breaks apart the electron/positron pairs of empty space, swallows the positron and in doing so negates the mass inside the black hole and converts it back to a electron/positron pair at the other side of the event horizon an electron is emitted causing the blackhole/singulairty over eons to evaporate. P.S. 3DO and neogeo those were the days

I love the Big Dreams! I've experienced those deep, purging tears of realization in the dream state and they are so healing. Sounds like you were very close to having a conscious OBE as well, with the sleep paralysis and the onset of the vibrational state. What an amazing experience! I've been Lucid Dreaming since the age of four and reconciling the effects of the memories of those experiences has been instrumental in my transition to become more aware of the illusionary/fluid nature of 'waking consciousness', or 'real life'. I've had so many dream experiences that are more vivid and impacting on my awareness/memory/experience of truth, than so called events in 'real life', that I came to the realization that any experience in any state of consciousness is equal to any other in its ability to impact my reality and convey truth experience.

Funny the only reason I'm reading and responding to this is because I had this intense dream that woke me early. My mom said, "Why are you up?" I said: "I had a bad dream.... well I didn't feel bad but bad things happened." Essentially I was on this boat with this mafioso dude and it's kind of complicated but the two of us were part of a big secret. Then for some reason he went to the back of the boat with several other people and they all got killed. It was disturbing to dream of so many deaths by gun shot. I was trying to think what caused it. O.K. it must have been this documentary I watched a week ago or so called the Soviet Story since I had thought of it yesterday. I never finished watching this as the download I had kept jamming up but there should be some decent downloads out there -- this is a really powerful expose on the Soviet deaths -- as bad as Nazi Germany or Mao or CIA genocides: O.K. I read through this thread now -- Maykea PM'd me and then I searched my name to get to this thread since she said I had been recommended. Maykea you're very lucky to live in Minnesota because you can take classes from qigong master Chunyi Lin who is truly astounding. Watch this Channel 9 news story on Chunyi Lin And then go to http://springforestqigong.com to sign up for classes -- it's through Normandale Community College but the class locations vary. I have not taken a class since 2005 or so -- but there's also meditation retreats as some of the classes too.

Yup -- the Eranos I Ching (Shantena/Sabbadini). Once I started using it, there's no going back to Wilhelm et al. However, it's been my experience that you need experience to use it. I went through all the versions Pietro has mentioned and more (a rather unique Russian one, e.g., by Schutsky), and kept progressively "growing out of them" to the point where the translator's ideas as to what is being communicated were becoming more and more just a source of distraction and/or irritation. The Eranos version is better than what a native speaker would read in the original, because it lists all meanings of every word, including historic ones no longer in circulation but meaningful at the time the book was written. Some of these meanings are explicitly and refreshingly taoist or even proto-taoist, and can only be understood in conjunction with wider taoist studies and practices. The attempts to tie judgements into actual sentences are mere suggestions (prepositions and conjunctions between words given in a different font, indicating they are absent from the original), and even these I'm finding superfluous. In the preface it is suggested to interpret what you get the way you would interpret a dream -- YOUR dream I might add, which makes sense to you and not necessarily anyone else. With every other version, you wind up with someone else's dreams and their interpretations. Nice to know what the combined mind of Wilhelm/Baynes or the combined mind of Liu I-Ming/ Thomas Cleary can dream up, but most of the time it has nothing whatsoever to do with what the great book is telling ME.

Reading and thinking about this ,I get the idea that the consciouses is a construction made out of many parts of the mind. That would explain why it can alter its perception, as in dreaming and hypnosis the parts making up contentiousness is altered, one part that is tuned out its the reality check so things in the dream state is perceived as real.

you touch the HARD palate, not the soft palate. The hard palate is right behind the teeth. It is very easy and does not require any strain at all. Just curve it upwards very slightly. also I am curious about this statement: in this thread http://thetaobums.com/topic/22912-semen-retention-100-days-and-my-experiences/page-2 it says I have been experiencing flutuations in dream intensity over time, sometimes it seems like I don't dream at all but other times I am having vivid dreams all night long. I don't do any practices though, and I certainly enjoy dreaming more than not dreaming.