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Hey everyone. I am from South Africa. Any other South Africans here? It has been a long journey that brought me to this place, so I guess I will give you guys a quick overview of what lead me here. When I was younger I wanted to be good at meeting girls and getting them to like me, so I studied a lot about the topic of attraction and the psychology about why we do the things we do and how the human mind works. That lead me to study about what makes successful people successful and how to be financially successful. By this time I had long forgotten about girls and was struggling with questions like: What does it mean to be successful or happy? Why do we want the things we want? Why do we even get up in the morning? What really drives us and Why are we being driven? I realized that I was not in control of my own life. That this control was just an illusion, like a dream I am trying to escape. Still today I struggle. Everyone around me seems to still be stuck in the dream. I decided that I will find out how to get control over my life and to do that I would need to get full control over my mind. That has lead me to yoga and meditation and ultimately to this site. I hope to meet others who have also "woken up" and perhaps together we can make sense of what we as humans are capable of and what is really important and worth pursuing in life.

the dream discribe this feeling from viewpoint of follower

I was out eating last night and saw the last like...half of the game. Laughed a bit when portugal tied it, that was an amazing setup shot and header... and then... WHAT? you're just going to stop fkn playing?!?!?!?! What the hell you mean? Really, they just end the game and stop playing like that with no resolution to the contest??? pffff. another reason not to watch soccer. that was the stupidest thing ever, no wonder they have soccer riots, that bull is like being a kid and having a dream where you're about to get laid and then you wake up. just about cant get any more anti climactic than that. I dont think there's a greater example of waiting forever for something to maybe happen, well, nope its ok if nothing happens... I thought games and tournaments are tests of skill to find the better team, but what do I know I've watched games of chess that were as interesting. I'm allright with actually playing the sport, but watching it is like watching grass grow, imho

I'm just writing about my experience here and then if you can share related/similar experiences, it might help in understanding things. Always nice to share our adventures on the path. After my profound ayahuasca experience, I had several trippy (and scary) dreams, and when I woke up from those, I had a moving colors sensation for a minute or so when having my eyes closed. I nicknamed it "the projector matrix". It is a somewhat square-based animation of expanding rings of colors, and it gradually begins to become smaller (meaning more squares in the field of vision) in the time after the dream. I thought it gone, but a few days ago I had another not-really-trippy wannabe-nightmare* and after waking up, there was the projector matrix again. *) It was a dream where I was lying down and had difficulty turning my view around, but forced it and things were kinda shadowy there and then I woke up. That was the second dream recently where I actively and energetically confronted fear upfront, effectively not even acknowledging the experience as frightening, making it feel more like kicking nightmare-butt. ... I was actually disppointed that I woke up. Seems like those cowardly fears are hiding from me, haha.

Allinone, The moment of awakening is basically the same for everybody, but varies in the details… The moment of awakening always comes after you have exerted a lot of effort to reach it, but not when you are thinking about it or expecting it… it happens when you are temporarily mindlessly preoccupied with something else and you least expect it… also it never happens when it would put you in danger (like if you were driving a car, or engaged in some hazardous activity)… I know of one monk who was mindlessly watching a farmer plant rice when he had his moment of awakening… another monk had walked a long distance, and when he stopped to rest for a few minutes and sat down, he had his moment of awakening… another monk was mindlessly taking a piss when he had his moment of awakening… when it happened to me, it was late afternoon and I was sitting mindlessly listening to the wind rustling the leaves on the trees, and to a solitary bird that was singing its heart out, when it hit me like a ton of bricks… totally without warning… that was my moment of awakening… As soon as it hit me, I could hear loud very deep rumbling sounds like an earthquake was ripping mountains apart, and hear very high pitched zinging sounds… and see blinding flashes of light, like the flash on a camera going off in my face… (this is basically the same for most people at their moment of awakening… but after this it can vary a lot, depending on the person )… I had just spent more than six weeks in solitary meditation, trying to force my way into my subconscious mind, in an attempt to reprogram it… because of this, after the loud rumbling earthquake sounds, zinging sounds, and flashing lights were finished… I found myself inside my subconscious mind in a huge space looking at what looked like Hoover Dam (which represented my delusion) towering in front of me… then big cracks started appearing in the dam, getting bigger and spreading, and pieces of the dam were breaking off and falling away, fizzing away as they got smaller and smaller until they evaporated… then the whole dam gave away and collapsed… and the entire contents of my subconscious mind, like a giant wave swept out and over me… at this point my moment of awakening was over, and I was awakened… the “hypnotic trance of delusion” had been destroyed… Everyone thinks that they are not deluded (which is delusion), until they awaken… then they feel as if their whole life up to this point was just a long hypnotic dream, and that they have just awakened in the “real world”… everyone experiences this, which is why it is called “awakening”… After awakening, my subconscious mind had become as conscious as my conscious mind… so I then spent the next seven days inside my subconscious mind exploring it, and experiencing it, seeing what it was capable of… gaining firsthand knowledge of it… I had no sense of time passing, except that the sun kept coming up and going down, it was always “NOW”… and I was pure awareness, simply aware that I was aware… my subconscious mind was no longer deluded, so it was now completely reliable… and my conscious mind was serenely "empty” and peaceful… Dawg

A good first clue. Thanks. Hm, I guess it's not because the sleep phase is too short and thus not entering REM sleep. After all, one can just take a brief nap and still dream.

Whenever I've had large dream-less chunks of life, it almost *always* corresponded to periods where I was simply not getting enough sleep. Like not even close.

My dream when I was 20 was seriously to become a goat rancher. Ranch dem goats!

Any conclusive insights about this? It seems some people have extensive phases of not remembering any dreams. Then sometimes dream activity is enormous. "What does it mean?", I wonder. While it might be worthwhile to examine a possible habit of not waking up directly after a dream, we don't ONLY remember dreams we wake up from, so that can't explain all of it.

...And the dream of the mountain...

and it helps if you get enough sleep to dream, too

Greetings telos. First place I'd look is to your diet. Are you getting enough healthy fats in your diet? This is crucial for cognition. There are lots of ways to add them in. If you're a tea or coffee drinker, the current trend is "Bulletproof coffee" which uses grass-fed ghee and MCT oil, which is a condensed form of coconut oil. This is supremely powerful for cognition, and the high quality fat also gives great energy for several hours. And it trains your body to burn fat for calories. I'm a biohacker, so a lot of my advice comes with the caveat - everyone has a different biology, a different diet, a different mindset. But I try to offer a lot of options. In my own struggles, I always feel better knowing I have a lot of options to try. Krill oil is good, especially with megahydrate, which is a high-grade antioxidant. Whenever you take refined oils, a portion of them oxidize in your system, so you don't get maximum bioavailability. But megahydrate keeps it from oxidizing, so you get closer to 90% instead of 50-60%. When fasting or eating minimally, I've also found megahydrate to cut my need for sleep down dramatically. What else... pranayama of course, in the freshest air you can get. Hydrating is really important. I live in Boulder up at 6,000 feet, so it's very dry at altitude, and I find that if I'm not hitting liter bottles of water continuously, my performance suffers. Also, read, man. Read all kinds of wild stuff. When I'm working on a novel, I keep books on architecture around. Because it stimulates a different aspect of my brain. A book gives you the ability to think like someone else for a while, and I find this totally addictive. Poetry is good for stimulating the imagination. Sudoku and word finds have helped me with dream recall. The point is to just be interested in things. Binge on information that you're curious about, and it will light up your brain more and more. Neuroplasticity is so cool. I personally believe the mind has the ability to keep growing forever, like that big pink monster in Akira, except less gross, and more on the psychic level. I try not to post links to other sites very often, but the subreddit on Nootropics and biohacking is a fun conversation I drop into every once in a while, even though this is more toward the hard geek-mode side of things: http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/ Also, a note on fish oil - I suggest avoiding it unless it's extremely high-grade (pharmaceutical grade) because fish holds a LOT of toxins in their liver, which is what's used for the oil. And also because this oil is highly volitile, and will get damaged (oxidized) in processing, so a great deal of what you get is rancid. Which is why people get the fish oil burps, etc. A company called Dr. Dave's makes very high grade stuff, I just ordered it to see if it's legit or not. But krill oil is super legit and very good for eyesight also. I go with Mercola's just because I know it's on point. Feel free to PM if you wanna geek about brain cognition and meditation and various stuff. I'm super into it.

Funny, I'm going through a similar transition at the moment. My gaming is more for reflex training and problem solving, transferable into my new field. I have also been marketing games/consoles recently...so yes, what a dream! But as you say, alas, I am leaving that world behind.

Used to want to be a game tester/developer when a teen. Get paid to create and play video games all day along. But alas another dream deferred. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. My 2 cents, Peace

May my long-winded, twisting, winding words teach you patience Padawan! Let's see... 1. I am offended that a guru would throw seekers out. I think it likely that I would suffer the same fate, were I to find a guru. 2. I am lonely. In a physical sense I have nobody to share my life with, no friends, nowhere I fit. 3. I am hurting. Being around this beautiful young woman, feeling electrified, yet having this inner knowing that she is not for me. 4. I am lost and confused, with no clear dream or purpose. Tired of having to figure crap out on my own. 5. I am asking for help to understand. Some way to be at peace with all I am feeling and going through.

Kosta Danaos: Nei Kung- Quote : In space and time, while we are alive, we havethe ability to create, to think analytically, to dream, to lie and fabricate. This is because we possess both the yin and yang energies, both conscious and unconscious capability, while living. Quote : The decision to bring yin and yang together in thespirit through a process of meditation undertaken exclusively while the individual is alive changes things considerably. In essence, this practice is nei kung, the development of inner power. NEI GONG - NOT MOPAI EXCLUSIVELY! Quote : Accepting that our nervous systemprocesses the yin energy and accepting that this yin energy is the primal chaos beyond space and time i.e., = NOT JUST UNDER DIRT

I've seen reptile eye in meditation - but its rare. Also I had a dream, I was running down a road - the road where I went to school - and the road was full of snakes. I was jumping up and down and running down the hill so as to not land on the snakes. At the bottom of the road, the road curved in semi cycle twice - it does in real life, close to an old ruined mill. Around the bottom of the last curve was a huge lizard in the middle of the road which hissed at me, not allowing me to pass. I awoke due to fear. The dream always puzzled me, and now it makes sense if this lizard was the king of serpents. Energy was streaming up my back when I awoke. It was the only time I had such a dream. The significance of it I have no idea. Have a nice weekend everyone .

Being part of a community like this has always been a dream of mine... But it doesn't look like I'll make it happen in this lifetime. The worst part is, I know my wife would actually enjoy it, but she'd never let go of the system unless it let go of her first. Slightly envious

I have a favorite cup , on it is a picture of stone fishermans cottage by a little quay, with two fishing boats .... its my dream retirement place. Not sure about the windswept (cold?) aspect .... I like the idea of hearing lapping water and old boats clonking up against each other ( the time I experienced that I loved it ) ... throw in some night time mopoke owl hoots and I would be in heaven. Good luck ... Nungali blesses you efforts

"A Man's Root" Eight inches strong, it is my favourite thing; If I'm alone at night, I embrace it fully - A beautiful woman hasn't touched it for ages. Within my fundoshi there is an entire universe! "A Woman's Sex" It has the original mouth but remains wordless; It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair. Sentient beings can get completely lost in it But it is also the birthplace of all the Buddhas of the ten thousand worlds. On the sea of death and life, The diver's boat is frightened With "Is" and "Is not"; But if the bottom is broken through, "Is" and "Is not" disappear. night plum blossoms spreading under a branch between her thighs narcissus revolves smell it? ~ Ikkyu Sojun http://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/IkkyuSkeletons.html Skeletons by Zen Master Ikkyu Translated by Thomas F. Cleary In: The Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen, Grove Press, 1978. pp. 79-92. It is in the written word that all things can be seen together. In the beginning of mental evolution, one should concentrate on sitting meditation. Whatever is born in any land all becomes naught. One's own body is not primary: not even the original face of sky and earth and all nations and lands is primary -- all come from emptiness. Because it has no form, it is called Buddha, enlightened. Various names such as enlightened mind, mental buddha, mind of reality, buddhas, enlightened ancestors, spiritized ones -- all come from this. Unless you realize this, you're going right to hell. Also, according to the teaching of good people, we do not return after going separate ways into the lands of darkness; those who are close and those who are inconstant both revolve in the flow of the three realms -- feeling ever more weary of this, I left my native village, going nowhere in particular. Coming to an unfamiliar abandoned temple, even as I wrung out my sleeves, I realized it was already nightfall. With no way to get together even a grass pillow for a nap, as I looked around here and there, there were mossy graves at a distance from the path, near the foot of the mountain, where the fields of meditation were sparse. One especially miserable-looking skeleton came out from behind the hall and said: The autumn wind has risen in the world, in the fields and mountains where you'll go when the fall flowers beckon. What can be done for the body, as a black-dyed sleeve in the heart of a man who wastes it? [1] Everyone must sometime become naught. Becoming naught is called "returning to the fundamental." When you sit facing a wall, the thoughts which arise from conditioning are all unreal. The Buddha's fifty years of teachings are not real either. It's just to know people's minds. Wondering if there were anyone who understands this suffering, I went into the hall and spent the night there, even lonelier than usual, unable to sleep. Around dawn, as I dozed off a bit, in a dream I went out behind the hall, and saw a crowd of skeletons all acting in different ways, just like people in the world. As I watched with a sense of wonder, some skeletons came up and said: When it passes without a memory, this worthless body becomes a dream. If you divide the way of enlightenment into buddhas and kami, how can you enter the true path? [2] As long as it travels the road of life in the present for a while, the corpse in the fields seems elsewhere. [3] Anyway, as I got familiar with them and relaxed, the feeling l'd had of separation between myself and others disappeared. What's more, my skeleton companions wanted to give up the world and seek the truth; seeking separation from excess, going from shallow to deep -- in searching out the source of one's own mind, what fills the ears is the sound of wind in the pines, what blocks the eyes is left on the pillow under the moon. When are we not in a dream, when are we not skeletons, after all? Male and female forms exist only as long as these skeletons are wrapped up and put to use inside five-tone flesh; when life ends and the body bag breaks, there are no such forms -- neither are high or low distinguished. Under the flesh which you now care for and enjoy, this skeleton is wrapped up and set in motion; you should acquiesce to this idea -- in this there is no difference between high and low, old and young. Only when you awaken to the condition of the one great matter will you know the imperishable truth. If a stone is good enough for an effigy after death, hang a scrap of writing on a monument of five elements -- What is it? Oh! A frightening figure of a man! While you have the single cloudless moon how have you come to the darkness of the fleeting world? You must think it true; when the breath stops and the skin of the body comes apart, everyone turns out like this -- your body cannot live forever. A sign of how long is your time are the pines of Sumiyoshi planted before. Give up the mind that thinks there is a self; just go with the wind driving the floating cloud of the body, and come this way. You want to live indefinitely, to the same age; you would really think so -- this is the same frame of mind. Since the world is a sleepless dream, in vain do people start awake upon seeing this. It is useless to pray for a definite lifespan. You shouldn't keep anything on your mind except the One Great Matter. Since life in the human world is uncertain, it is not a matter of awakening to this just now for the first time. Since it is a way to become detached, the sorrow of the world is quite happy. Why adorn a mere temporary form? Didn't you know it had to be [temporary] like this? The original body must return to the original place; don'T seek out where you won't go. Nobody understands life; there is no dwelling place -- when you return, you must become the original earth. Although there are many paths up the base of the mountain, we see the same moon on the high peak. Since where you are going you don't establish a home there, there's not even a road to get lost on. Having no beginning or end, one's mind should not be thought of as being born, or dying. Left to do as it will, the mind doesn't even think things through -- better to have controlled it and given up the world. Rain, sleet, snow, ice -- as such they may be different, but when melted they're the same valley stream water. Although the path of the liberated mind may change, behold the same law of the cloud dweller. [4] A straight path buried under the fallen pine needles; hardly do we realize it is a house where people dwell. How hopeless, the trip to the funeral pyre -- [5] as the fallen, they must stay. [is it transitory, the trip to the burning pyre? as the fallen, they must stay.] Tired of the world, how long will you see the evening smoke of the pyre as another's sorrow? How fleeting, the faces of the people whom we saw only yesterday, as they vanish into the smoky evening. So sad, the evening smoke of the funeral pyres; only the sky is left behind by the wind, as it was before. Of what becomes ash when burnt, earth when buried, what could be left as sin? The sins committed up till the age of three all disappear together, as does eventually the self. This must be what is certain in the world. Thinking how vain are those who do not realize that even today, right now, there must be such helplessness and death, and are startled by it, if asked how their lives should be, some say that these days, unlike the past, they are leaving the temples. In olden times, those who aspired to the way would enter a monastery, but nowadays they are all leaving the monasteries. When you look at them, the monks have no knowledge, they don't like to sit and meditate; without making any efforts, they admire utensils, adorn cushions -- full of conceit, they make their reputation just by wearing the robe, but even wearing the robe of monkhood, they are surely just lay people in disguise. Even though they wear the robe and surplice, the robe becomes a rope tying them up, and the surplice becomes an iron rod thrashing them, so it seems. If we look carefully into the meaning of the cycles of birth and death, destroying life leads to hell, by greed we become hungry ghosts, by ignorance we become animals, by anger we become titans; by maintaining the five precepts [6] we are born human, and by carrying out the ten virtues [7] we are born divine. Above these state are the four holy ones [8] -- added all together, they make ten realms. Looking at this single moment of thought, [9] it has no shape, it abides nowhere for its duration, and there is nothing in it to despise and reject. It is like clouds in the vast sky, like bubbles on the water. Just because there are no thoughts arising, there is nothing to do either. Thoughts and things are one emptiness. I don't know about people's doubts. People's parents are like striking fire: the steel is the father; the flint is the mother; the spark is the child. Setting this to a wick, when the sustenance of fuel and oil is exhausted, the fire goes out. When the father and mother make love, that is like the fire coming forth; since father and mother have no beginning, eventually they fade away in the mind where the fire has gone out. Openly embracing all things through emptiness, all forms are produced. When you let go of all forms, this is called the basic ground. All forms -- of plants, trees, and land -- all come from emptiness, so as a temporary metaphor it is called the fundamental ground. When you break up a cherry tree and look, there are no flowers at all; the flowers are brought by the spring wind. Even though you soar boundlessly even beyond the clouds, just don't rely on the teachings of Gautama. If, hearing the teachings spoken by Gautama over fifty years, you want to try to put the teachings into practice, what Gautama said at the end was that from the beginning to the end he had not said a single word; instead, he raised a flower in his hand, whereat Kasyapa smiled faintly. Then Gautama said, "I have the straight- forward heart of the true teaching," and put down the flower. If you wonder what it means, Gautama said, in effect, "What I have been teaching for some fifty years is like when you're cuddling a baby pretending to be holding something in your hand; my fifty-odd years of teaching was like this call to Kasyapa." Therefore the teachings which he transmitted were like the cuddling of the baby. But this flower cannot be known by means of the body, nor is it the mind; even speaking of it, you cannot know it. You should understand this body and mind thoroughly. Even if you are called a knowledgeable person, you cannot [therefore] be called a Buddhist. As for this flower, the teaching of the one vehicle of all the buddhas of past, present, and future appearing in the world refers to this flower. From the twenty-eight patriarchs in India and six patriarchs in China up till now, there has never been anything but the fundamental ground. Because everything is beginningless, it is called great; all modes of consciousness are produced from emptiness. Even the summer, fall, and winter of the flowers of spring, the colors of the plants and trees, also are made from emptiness. Also, the so-called four gross elements are earth, water, fire, and air. People hardly know what these are. Breath is air, warmth is fire, body fluid is water; if you burn or bury this, it becomes earth. There, too, because there is no beginning, nothing remains at all. Whatever it is is nothing but the world of delusion since even "death" does not turn out to be a real vacation. Everybody, everybody, in the eyes of illusion though the body dies the spirit does not die -- this is a great mistake. In the language of the enlightened, they say that the body and the seed die as one. Even "Buddha" means emptiness. You should return to the basic ground of sky, earth, land, and everything. Giving up the eighty thousand teachings of all the scriptures, just understand this all rolled into one. You will become people of great peace and happiness. Even written down, they're just marks made in a dream; after waking up, there is no one else who asks. 4/8/1457 Ikkyu-shi Sojun, seventh generation after Xutang, in Daitoku Temple before the eastern sea. Notes to Ikkyu's Skeletons 1. The black-dyed sleeve symbolizes renunciation, as the robe of the homeless. A verse of Saint Ippen (1239-1289), a pure land sage of earlier Japan, says, "Giving up the body as well as the idea of giving up, an unthinking black-dyed sleeve in the world." Contained in homonymy and association is the sense "You should live in the world after renunciation, giving up even the idea 'I abandon.''' This is why Ikkyu still warns against wasting it. 2. Kami are nature spirits associated with Japanese earth and life consciousness; they were thought to protect, accept, and uphold Buddhist teachings. The aforementioned Saint Ippen received his major revelations through the mediumship of kami, and later taught the fundamental meaning of prayer underlying all forms of respect. Many eminent Buddhist teachers also preached the nonduality of the spirit and Buddha ways. 3. The corpse in the fields that seems elsewhere is the living body. A verse of Saint Ippen says: "Is it meaningless? While the corpse has not yet decayed, the meadow earth seemed to be elsewhere." This he spoke at the ruins of his grandfather's grave. 4. The law of the cloud dweller is impermanence; in ancient texts it is sometimes used for absolute transcendence or absolute indifference -- we might say, death, as the most personal and cutting expression of impermanence. The great Zen master Hakuin wrote that one who sees into death is safe. 5. The Japanese uses the name of a mountain where bodies were taken to be burned. The variant English reading in parentheses is to highlight the allusion to the sense of the permanence of impermanence. 6. The five precepts are not to kill on purpose; not to steal in any way, even indirectly; not to be greedy or overindulgent in the course of human life; not to drink or sell liquor; and not to lie. 7. "Ten virtues" can have several references. Commonly they refer to the preceding five moral precepts, plus not talking about people's faults, not praising yourself and degrading others, not being stingy or predatory, not being angry without shame, and not repudiating the three treasures of the enlightened ones, their teaching and their communities. In the most ancient teachings, it is said that the Buddha had monks restrain useless mundane talk, but rather discourse on the merits and virtues of ten things: effort, little desire and being content, bravery, learning and the ability to explain the teaching to others, being fearless and unawed, being impeccable in conduct, being accomplished in meditation, wisdom and knowledge, liberation, and the vision and knowledge of liberation. In the esoteric teachings, in which terms Ikkyu sometirnes wrote, there are two explanations: one is not regressing from the determination for enlightenment; not abandoning the three treasures to seek outside ways; not slandering the three treasures and the scriptures of the three vehicles; not doubting places in the very profound scriptures of the great vehicle where you don't understand them; not discouraging anyone determined on enlightenment or causing them to tend to self-enlightenment; not causing uninspired people to go into the lesser vehicles of self- enlightenment; not speaking hastily about the great vehicle in front of those following the lesser vehicles or wrong ideas; not inspiring false ideas; not saying in the presence of outsiders that you have the wonderful precepts of enlightenment; not doing anything harmful or useless to sentient beings. A second set: not abandoning the true teaching; not giving up the spirit of enlightenment; not being stingy with the teachings; not doing anything that is not beneficial to sentient beings; not slandering any of the teachings of the three vehicles; not begrudging teachings; not having false views, like nihilism; encouraging people not to give up their aspiration for enlightenment; not preaching unsuitable teachings to people without consideration of their faculties; not giving people anything that will harm them. 8. The four holy states are sainthood (arhat), self-enlightenment (pratyeka-buddha), bodhisattva, and buddhahood. 9. The ten realms are born of a single moment of thought.

I practice the cultivation of the chi energy, the chi force. Not exactly chi kung...that is, I don't necessary follow an elaborated format to cultivate my chi....because I never need to follow any format to have completed the microcosmic orbit. The microcosmic orbit is the most fundamental aspect of the Taoist internal alchemy. Your chi must be able to complete all its energy paths along your body. I experienced it when I was 18, some 15 years ago, with only to have dream about 2 Taoist immortals...hehehehe... Mystical..... Since my body is generally healthy, I don't go through a great length to strength my body for the sake of the chi energy. However, I cultivate my chi through meditation....to cultivate the mind to see and to become the Tao. Then, the chi energy would come and go naturally in my body. How long I have been practicing it? If you include my past lives, it could have been a long, long time ago. But, I experienced the kundalini energy and the microcosmic orbit when I was 18, 15 years ago. Is it a daily practice? I do 2 meditations a day, about 1 hour per session. One in the morning, after waking up and the other before bed. And I meditate in my sleep too. Personal benefits? This is tough. It is only personal because I experience the chi personally. However, the effect is beyond personal because I seem to have developed the ability for precognitions for world events and maybe events in my own life, in my dreams. And of course, I don't look my age, maybe looking 10 to 15 years younger. And I believe my chi can neutralize toxins like being stung by a giant wasp. Yeah, it happened to me and let's just say that I have mosquito bites looking worst than being stung by a giant wasp. And another incidence in which my life was in danger (about to be run over by a SUV while I was biking, with less than 4 seconds reaction time). Somehow, I did some Matrix move and I didn't even touch the SUV at all.

Yes you can take knowledge into a dream . I have most definitely used my daytime knowledge to figure things out in dreams, the lucid dreams I mean. Fun stuff. To remember dreams more often, and to get to the point of lucid dreaming, write every single dream down. It works better than one would think, even if it is so simple. On the nights you don't remember your dreams you can write something like "I chose not to remember my dreams". Have fun .

Your dream actions and mind-states tend to be a reflection of your real life actions and mind-states. If you practice acceptance of your emotional states and awareness of the senses during the day, this will spill over into your dreams. You can flow with the dreams during the night and wake up in a benevolent mood. I know what you mean by all this, though. Sleep has a way of resetting things. Just remember to start your meditations right away in the morning. Flow with the feelings - no matter what they are - once you've emerged from the dream state, and they will become more integrated into your peaceful mind. Then, when you feel them in your dreams, you'll be less likely to resist, and they won't disturb you. Some of my greatest "victories" have been waking up to realize I had accepted something disturbing in my dreams. (Usually large spiders lately, haha...)

I've got a few cool dreams and reoccurring ones I'm still trying to figure out meanings for. Years back one of my coolest dreams was about me being chased by a spirit that could turn into anything.. It cornered me and actually killed me, then everything was just black.. A voice in my head said "no this is my world" So I rewound the dream like a VHS up to the point before I died, then saved myself and killed the spirit. Others have been phsychic but about useless events..still pretty cool though

Simple Jack's comments on the previous page are excellent. I'm not sure why there is such contention towards a term such as 'non-arising', it is a perfect term to describe that species of insight in my eyes. Non-arising entails recognizing that appearance does not actually create anything, it is suddenly apparent there is no identity or entity within or behind appearance, like a reflection, no arising in apparent arising, that is non-arising. It is a direct non-conceptual cognition, just like seeing the color blue, or tasting an apple. Just as you see an object you see that nothing is truly 'there'. No core or essence, no linking qualities which extend that appearance in time or space. It feels like you are seeing something correctly for the very first time, directly perceiving the actuality of phenomena. No longer beguiled by taking things to be real, like waking up from a dream, and you know intimately that nothing is real. The recognition is so immediate and intimate, carrying a doubtlessness about it, requiring no evaluation or outside confirmation like you wouldn't need someone to confirm that you had just been stung by a bee. This is me trying to put it in words for you, since you feel so put off that I don't speak about my experience, but how to actually capture that? Seeing appearances yet knowing without any doubt or uncertainty that there is nothing 'there', and never has been, it really cannot be communicated. It is beautiful.