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The headless one - "for Me" was the initial voluntary step forward to acknowledge that Quest. I took it serious, performed it over a period of time. various paths were "lit up" before me, and I choose the ones I felt I was being led to. Sutekh, constellation of the thigh, Abramelin, Enochian, Necronomicon (NOT the mainstream stuff) Kundalini was my multicoloured dream coat

I had a dream last night that the universe was a great wooden helix that worked like clockwork; one great machine with wooden sticks of various sizes connecting all the stars with the sun, the earth, the planets; Rotating in predictable and cyclical patterns. Carved upon the wooden sticks were us, part and parcel of the wood.

Hello all, I will try to make this as short as possible. I was recommended here by someone on a mens health forum. I am 34 yr old male, about 5 ten 175 lbs. Have had a history of celiac disease, chronic pelvic pain, hypothyroidism(which I finally began treatment for in March of this year.) have the other issues mostly under control, I am on very low dose thyroid meds. Anyways, back in March I began meditation, simply as a way to try and calm my overactive mind, and help some of my health issues. I also have done on/off semen retention, quit porn to try and get my sexuality back. Well, for the first 2-3 months I noticed some remarkable results..I was doing 15-30 min a day, sometimes guided meditations from youtube, sometimes just following my breath or using a mantra. I felt much calmer, in control..more like my old self. I was "in the zone' a lot of times so to speak... Something has started to...change the last month- 2 months however. I have had days where I increased my meditation time to an hour, and some where i simply did a 20 min session. Anyways, Ive started to notice some strange symptoms. I had nights..walking my dog around a local lake where I felt as if I was on the drug ecstacy..Obviously not to that extent but a similar feeling where everything felt magnified. Ive also had times..sometimes the very next day after these episodes where I felt beyond depressed. At first I thought it may have been my thryod messing w me, but Ive done blood work and everything came back fine. So, I just kept up my practice trying to maintain an even keel. But my body doesnt seem to be cooperating. Lately Ive noticed Disturbing ADD/ADHD type symptoms..FLAT emotions..low/no libido..vivid dreams..a sort of "hypersensitivity" when out in public. Ive had days also where Ive walked around feeling no fear whatsoever, and others where I didnt want to leave the house. My sense of direction, or feeling of motivation, is almost totally missing. I kinda feel like Im in a dream.It feels like my identity, or who I thought I was, is missing. Like all my past accomplishments, achievements, are a distant memory and not a part of me anymore. I used to be a professional baseball player, a good golfer, loved to golf..I have NO desire to golf, and no feeling of pride from being an athlete.. But at the same time, have a strainge feeling of contentment, at least when the anxiety doesnt take hold.. Just a recent example of how strange things have gotten..I took a girl out a few weeks ago(this has been another thing, women seem to be checking me out much more than before I ever meditated, but my libido..shot), we hit it off very well and after our date she suggested she come back to my place..I agreed. Long story short, I didnt escalate anything, mostly to my feeling tired and inexperience(been out of dating for a long time) and things kinda fell through for us. I am usually quite great at moving on from these types of things and learning from my mistakes, etc..and I had done a decent job of that..however the other day I had to go to the vet where she works(this is where we met) and she wasnt there. As I was standing there buying my dog his meds, I had a very strange feeling come over me of absolute sadness, melancholy, like I was at a funeral. THis freaked me out and I got the meds and got out of there as quick as I could. it was extremely bizarre, as I barely knew this girl save for the one night..this wasnt just a little sadness because of a missed opportunity, this was a feeling of dread and absolute grief that just came over me when 2 minutes before I was content. I got into a car accident a week ago where I did about 5000 dollars worht of damage to my car. That morning, after I got out of shower to go to job interview, I had a powerful sensation or voice in my head telling me not to leave the house.I had to get a cat scan after the accident as I hit my head on the steering wheel, and they found nothing, just said I had a minor concussion. So while I say Ive had flat emotions, I get these weird rushes of either joy or just flat out sadness that keep coming and going. the rest of the time it feels like autopilot, but I feel like I have an intuition like Ive never had in my life before. Ive had physical symptoms too..this one sounds crazy..but it feels like the left half of my head(or brain) is just...not there, not working. I cant explain this any better than that. strange dreams, that keep having some semblance of truth in the days or weeks following the dream..inability to concentrate. lack of appetite...no libido..muscle twitching..hypersensitivity..heightened awareness in public, but a strange..detached feeling from everything. enhanced endurance during exercise, yet feeling no endorphin rush after working out.Pulsing in my head during meditation lately which comes and goes.. A very hard time quitting addictions, yet they are giving me almost NO pleasure now. I drank a bottle of wine the other night and barely felt a thing.. I KNOW this sounds crazy and i hope a psychiatrist isnt reading and turns me into the looney bin. But I hope someone has some type of advice..Ive never felt this "spaced out" yet somehow fucntioning on a higher level before..Its like Im not in my body a lot of times. Idk what to make of it or how to tell anyone without coming off as a freak. I try my best to act normally around others, but something feels very off and Im alone. Idk wether to quit meditating, if thats even the issue, but Ive had tons of bloodwork done and everthign is checking out ok..I thank you all for any help you can give.

I've been doing a lot more S-M meditation lately and my dream life just flared up like crazy. It is like I'm being dumped into action movies all through the night. When I awoke in the middle of the night and had to go back to sleep I just had to laugh at myself and say "Here we go again." I know that it is said that if the Jing is full there will be no dreams, but I've been celibate now for more than 2 months and the dreams are of a different quality, not exactly vivid in a visual, colourful sense, but I'm very aware of everything and recall is way better than in ordinary dreaming. Last night I had a long episode where the world was being invaded by evil aliens and I had to fight them. The night previous I had to perform an exorcism on a room similar to the one in 'The Conjuring', which seemed to be successful (I've watched that film one too many times). I also had bouts of premonition while in the hypnogogic state knowing an SMS was inbound and somebody was about to call my name.

Past karma is nothing more than present mindset. Your primary thoughts in this present time are the determining factors which govern how acutely affected you are by the past. Extending all the way to the dream world as well. What occupies your mind most of the time now? Look deeply at this. Then you will understand why the past has got such a grip on your present mental continuum. You cannot change the past, but you certainly can change the way you think about the past. A practical way forward, i suggest, is to apply mindfulness to your thoughts, words, and deeds from now on. There is no need to force change. Force creates tension, and tension will only reinforce and strengthen the very chain you are trying to break. Another practical option is to create a new chain of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. Immerse yourself fully in this project of being fully attentive to all three activities. Over time, this new chain will replace the other one. Although you will still be bound, but at the very least, its a chain worthy of nourishment. Until such time when you uncover the Real. By then, you will hopefully have gained enough wisdom to see through the illusion of both. Then you will lol at how silly and fraught with unnecessary fears you have been. Be like water. Water yields, and seek the lowliest level always. That is how water is able to support all things. No matter what garbage gets thrown into it, or how polluted it becomes, it will always return to its essential pure state. Because of this profound, endless potential, it is not afraid to remain yielding, always welcoming, rejects nothing. And it never disappears... Embrace your present aliveness with both hands, get down on your knees and give thanks for being alive! Life is so very precious. We really do not have a long time to indulge with petty foregone notions of how unfair our past have been. We can die at any time. Be grateful for each moment you can flip open your eyelids lest they close one time more and will never open again.

Maybe I was looking for a proactive, yang approach to make these karmas disappear. FYI, my dream about my old job is quite pleasant. I was usually finding myself helping my staff and working for free. Even though I knew I don't work for my old company any more. It was an interesting sensation. Is like you walk into a company and starting to work and helping the staff there and you knew what to do. But you knew you won't get paid doing this and the management won't approve it. These dreams are bad since I want to get away from them. And I don't want to work in the same industry anymore. My college dreams are a bit tricky. I always find myself looking for my next class or finding myself looking for a room. No, I didn't enjoy my time in these college. It wasn't bad but it was a waste of my time there.

How does one burn up Karmas, especially, the karmas you have absorbed from others? My life is not short of personal sadness but that's pretty much dealt with. However, it seems that my mind is occupied by events took placed some 10 years ago. Mostly about a dead end job I had for 8 years. When I left and I thought I had friends but....even my so-called mentor just disappeared. Before that, I was in college earning a stupid degree in a college environment which was not conductive to my spiritual path. It was a waste. I kept telling myself these events do not matter. Yet, I dream about them often enough. My old workplace which no longer existed. My old college in which I felt lost, in the dream. I know they are impermanent but my mind didn't think so. Oh, before that, my past life karma and past life memories emerged. Ironically, I have that resolved very well. So, now, in the morning when my chi energy is flooding my brain, I could either start to mediate and completing the MCO within 15 minutes. Or I could fall back to sleep and to experience some of the most anxious dreams. They are often time about me fighting something. Trying to make my point across in a situation. Or I had to make some important decision. At times I feel like going back to these places and to tell them how worthless they are. How inconsequential they are in the whole world scheme of thing. I felt like they were holding me back because they were not exceptional in what they do. Ah....

I think you have the right motivation with the wish for more spirituality, but I guess it comes down to what you are hoping to achieve by doing it. I wish you success in all cases, though you probably have next to no chance if you are a virgin. The key thing is not to give up if you blow it. I forgot to mention before that there is another possibility. There are four kinds of mudras (or consorts). From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Yogas_of_Naropa#The_four_types_of_Karmamudr.C4.81s You may find that you are able to transmute the demon ladies of your dreams into consorts and practice within the dream state. This is just as powerful (if not more so) than actual physical union, as it is unconstrained. This is how tantrics can utilize the "poison" and create divine nectar from it. The manifested females are reflections of your anima shakti. She is deathless and always beautiful, you left her behind at the gates of the womb. You seek the shards of her reflection in every woman you will ever meet.

Please feel free to chime in. It seems like a few like-minded souls have found each other. This is truly a treat. Regarding the above two quotes, the second one seems to address more specifically the blockages of the soul, the error thinking. I too was taken by that paragraph by Pike when I read it, maybe two months ago. The cone of darkness is exactly proportionate to the size of the sphere, or the amount of illumination on the planet. At what point will there be no cone of darkness? Is that even possible? and the closer the sphere gets to the source of manifestation (sun) the longer the cone of darkness will be. I seem to recall later in Morals and Dogma that the end result is for the earth to merge with the sun. At that point there would be no further cone of darkness. this speaks either to the planetary set-up or the inner configurations of us. That is the key - to merge with the sun, or the source of enlightenment. Perhaps a type of dynamic manifestations happens within the cones of other planets as well - but the balance of nature seems to happen just on the 3rd rock from the sun, or at least the visible manifestation for which our particular rods and cones are set up. Venus would have the longest cone of darkness due to its proximity. The third chakra down is the one in the throat area, is it not? That is the chakra for manifestation, or how we present to the world. Maybe there's an analogy there too. Desires are the blockages. No doubt Josh has a desire to be away from his father. His remedy would be to transcend that desire, to learn to love his father for what he is, an imperfect alcoholic; a nearly impossible task for a teenage boy. 'The most virulent poisons are the most sovereign remedies'. Hasn't this been what we've been talking about, both with Stephen Hawking and with Joshua? Their blockages were of their own manifestation, if looked at from a totally non-judgmental perspective. As in my dream, the young girl had to swim her own way to the top, there could be no help from Lance. Perhaps Mr. Hawking engaged in some error thinking, even pre-natally, which caused his lifelong malady, although his brain certainly took off into the ethers in a scientific sense. But maybe not in an inner sense? Darkness within darkness. That is beautiful. The cosmic soup is darkness, and our cone of darkness, of error thinking is the black within the black. Only blacker. BTW, I love Stephen Mitchell's translation of the TTC. He made a noble attempt to modernize it, to place it more within today's framework of speech and metaphor.

Your ceremony was beautiful. Your interpretation of your dream is as much your right to own as was the dream itself. One rarely comes without the other but only if you ask. You have asked and received your answer. Let him be. He will heal in the way he is meant to heal. Of course we all want him to walk again. The Tao doesn't see it the way we do. And it may be to his best advantage in this life to have physical problems from this. Send him your love as you are doing. That is just what "God" would do. You can do no better than God. Because you are God. I could be dead wrong about Pike's level of contribution to Scottish Rite. I am basing my opinion on conversations with other Masons on the topic. According to my friends, the material Pike started with was incomprehensible, fragmented to the point of no return. A. Pike did the Masons a great favor by sorting this stuff out, and his book is a gift to the world. I will get a pdf of it along with Hall's book. I would be glad to discuss this with you. There is a great deal of unspoken knowledge that is received from the ritual directly and cannot be put in books. You may then find my perspective interesting. I will look at Joshua. ... I am channeling: You are an incredible gift to this world. We will learn much from you. God bless you. Joshua? Yes. We love you. I know it. There are masters who teach in the form of yoga and so forth, all the stuff on this forum, and there are masters who teach us just as Joshua is doing. Is that all you have to say? No. When I look at Joshua, I don't see the crippled body and finite mind that's attached to it; I see an immense being of infinite power and creativity. Joshua is in no danger of going wrong no mater what happens to his body or whether it heals or not. Let's drop down to a level that we can relate to as humans. No. I am told. Look deep. The door is open; I pass the guardian of his inner world. It is dark, a void. No thoughts, no sight. Peaceful Nothingness. We are One. My body is filled with a strong energy. I see a vision of me stepping into his limbs and putting on his body like a suit of clothing. His limbs are filled with golden light. This is not a healing. I am simply sharing existence. I am sharing this with Joshua. I cannot distinguish the difference between us. I am stretching my arms out above my head and I am taking a step forward with my legs, waking for the first time since the accident. The vision closed.

First off, there is no such thing as a stupid comment. It does not exist. A quote from Osho comes to mind about death: When I was a teenager, I liked to take girls to the graveyard on dates. I liked the old tombstones. This was certainly a good test to see if the girl was going to be a good mate. I got turned down a few times but some girls liked the old stones as much as I did. They got asked out again to do something more conventional. I also liked taking dates on walks through the forest. I love nature. Again, I got some rejections and some yeses. I ended up marrying a girl who loved walking in the woods as much a s I did. I have felt fear in many places, including the woods. Looking back, I think I brought the fear with me. It wasn't real. I've felt evil so thick it would stop my heart when entering some places and resorted to a magic spell to cast it out of me. This worked. But, that was a long time ago. I haven't felt this fear or evil anywhere for the longest time. There was an exception about three years ago, in the fall of 2010, when I was entering a trail at dusk. I felt a strong warning telling me not to enter the woods there. It was a physical feeling, and emotional; it gripped me and shook me, telling me that this hike was not a good idea. I entered the woods anyways. The feeling of not being wanted there continued to be very strong. I took a side trail to a picnic bench and sat down to enjoy the wonderful play of light at dusk over the verdant rain forest. Looking back at the main trail, I saw two very tall personages covered in long blond hair walking along the trail at a good speed. They were female I felt. Suddenly, a large black-haired male strode up to my bench. I stood on the bench to be eye to with him, but he was still taller. I said hello in my mind. His forearm was injured, I could tell since I was a healer; I reached out and touched his forearm to give him a healing. The hair was incredibly soft. Without warning, his hand shot out and entered my chest, tearing my heart from my body. I fell over dead, then came too as if emerging from a very life-like dream. No hairy personages in sight. I left the woods after that; the instant I reached my car, the strong foreboding feeling of eminent danger left me. This occured a week or so before receiving my third Reiki degree. I don't think this was a daydream. I think I received psychic surgery on my heart which was in dire need of healing, emotional healing, at the time. P'taah says, "We live in a safe universe".

Traveler, as we are of One Mind, I would love your help on something. Please read post #11 in this thread where I did a ceremony for a young man that was in a motocross accident and ended up quadriplegic. His father is an alcoholic, and the boy is terrified of him. His father forced him to enter the race. Please look at my interpretation of this dream and tell me if you see it as wrong, or specifically to the opposite of what I see. I think this dream directly relates to my question of whether to have another ceremony for Joshua (young man) Yesterday, I made up my mind to do another ceremony to get the current down to his lower body (I would get Chrissy, his friend, back to do it again; this time with more focus on the lower limbs - same physical ceremony with the rice and the lamp). I had determined that today I would contact Chrissy and have her come back over to do it. This morning, I woke up with a dream fresh on my mind. I had dreamt of Lance Armstrong - it suddenly hit me that Lance was a 'biker', although not a motocross rider - but the analogy is there. I know no famous motocross riders, so it makes sense that this would come to me as Lance. Lance was standing at the edge of a pool. He was coaching a young girl who was in a wheelchair to learn to swim. She and her wheelchair were up on the diving board; she dove in, still sitting in the chair; but able to use her arms (as Joshua now is too). She swam across the length of the pool okay (still attached to the chair). Toward the end of her swim she went under; something had happened to the chair, it broke somehow, dragging her down. Lance did nothing. He just stood there, looking into the water, standing next to a duffel bag. Finally the girl popped up (I don't remember seeing the chair at all) and she was gasping for breath, coughing and sputtering. Still, he did nothing. He had no expression on his face, no panic, no nothing. After he saw that she came up, he bent over and picked up his duffel bag and left; didn't help her out or help her regain her chair. He just left. I remember turning to the person sitting next to me and saying "What an Asshole", referring to the fact that Lance didn't help her out of the pool to check to see that she was okay. The moment I woke up, my first thought was that I was wrong in calling him an asshole. It was a judgment, which was my error, I knew this immediately. What I'm thinking is that Joshua needs to go within, without judgment, and reexamine his relationship with his father. He needs no further assistance in the way of ceremony; the rest is up to him and getting through the blockage in his psyche, the paralyzing fear of his father. Lance did exactly the right thing; he took his 'medical bag' (or provision cart, in our case) and let it be. I think that's what I will do; I will let this be, unless the situation spins into me again in some form. I would be happy to assist Joshua in learning to love his alcoholic father without judgment (as hard as that would be for a teenage boy) so that he doesn't re-manifest anything of this nature again. But I will take no steps to do so unless, as I say, it spins around again, in the form of a request from my friend Chrissy or Joshua's mother. From your outside position, can you triangulate anything different in this dream as it pertains to the situation? Do you think I'm seeing this correctly, or can you see it a different way? I may be too close. Your idea of looking into the Hua Hu Ching and looking for commonalities with Pike is a good one; a very meaty idea. I was under the impression that Pike didn't create the Scottish Rites, but instead organized longstanding traditions which to that point had been verbal and handed down. Do try and find this book! It will astound you, I guarantee it. The way he ties in all traditions, mystic and religious, from around the world, throughout history, is a rare thing of beauty. Manley Hall does much the same but Albert Pike, as you say, is truly a genius. Actually, they both are.

Fair points, but consider this as well: when you stick your hand into the fire, you feel pain. However, are you actually feeling what fire is? or are you merely interpreting a sensation (pain, heat, etc) to get a better understanding of the actual nature of fire? When you look at a fire, or a picture of a fire, or someone describes to you what fire is, do you automatically understand every single thing about fire from just that? Of course not, things tend to be much more complicated than our senses and descriptions give them credit for, and yet somehow they retain the ultimate simplicity of the natural way of things. It's not about whether it hurts or not, it's about being able to understand that fire is not merely "something that is painful to stick my hand into", that is merely one singular property from an observation made by the observer. In regards to the dream scenario, though you recognize a dream only as a dream when you wake up, how is there any way of knowing that this is not a dream, or even some simulation? How do we even know what happens when we die? How can we understand the nature of the "true universe" through our mere sensations? How do we even know that there even is a true nature of the universe? It is only the opinion of one person, but I feel that one must think extraordinarily highly of their ability to perceive the universe in order to claim that they can "know" the answer to any of these questions without considering a single iota for belief. That is the role that belief plays in my understanding. I "believe" that there is a true nature to the universe. I "believe" that our senses, while not able to show us the true nature of the universe itself, can provide us with information and insight that reflect the true nature of the universe. After all, our senses are the only thing that allow us contact with anything external to ourselves.

It depends on what you mean by "true". For example, you may have a dream in which you perceive yourself falling off a cliff, and it may feel "true", but when you wake up you regard it as "false". Then you may fall off a cliff while awake, and perceive it to be "true" then you hit the ground and die. In terms of sensory experience, it seems to be more about what you are feeling. For example, whether or not you regard your senses as being accurate indicators of "the true universe" or not, I challenge you to stick your hand into a fire and disbelieve that it hurts, and that you feel no pain whatsoever, and further that your body is not damaged by it. In contrast to ideas of what things are, and descriptions about how they work, the senses will provide a much more immediately energetic assessment of living experience - regardless of how "true" or "false" you may wish to describe it. Having an idea of power is one thing, and actually having power is quite another. The same goes for understanding, awareness, vision, etc.

edit> It strikes me I didn't answer F.'s question. I think most people start out with IIH, Initiation Into Hermetics. The commentaries I list below are based on it. I'd say warm up the printer and get some ink. The free commentaries by Rawn Clark - http://abardoncompanion.com/CommentariesLinks.html are excellent 'Cliff Notes'. William Mistele has a similar indepth notes - http://williammistele.com/basic.html (scroll down a bit for the commentary) as well as observations and stories. Most of the stuff on Rawn Clark's site is free. He has some audio commentaries on the IIH that are worthwhile but are relatively cheap looks like they're free now - http://www.abardoncompanion.com/Lecture/index.html . Some additional pointers and advice. Both practitioners tell of opening up to a wider world where there are myriad spirits open for communication and seem to have mastered dream work. More importantly they seem level headed not too far out. For a while Rawn had a Q&A forum. When asked for proof of power. He'd only say study and find out for yourself. Which might be an incomplete answer for some. You can find a couple of podcast interviews with him too.

A disciple of Lao Lai Tzu while out gathering fuel, chanced to meet Confucius. On his return, he said, 'There is a man over there with a long body and short legs, round shoulders and drooping ears. He looks as though he were sorrowing over mankind. I know not who he can be.' 'It is Confucius!' cried Lao Lao Tzu. 'Bid him come hither.' When Confucius arrived, Lao Lai Tzu addressed him as follows: 'Ch'iu! Get rid of your dogmatism and your specious knowledge, and you will be really a superior man.' Confucius bowed and was about to retire, when suddenly his countenance chanced and he enquired, 'Shall I then be able to enter upon Tao?' 'The wounds of one generation being too much', answered Lao Lai Tzu, 'you would take to yourself the sorrows of all time. Are you not weary? Is your strength equal to the task? 'To employ goodness as a passport to influence through the gratification of others, is an everlasting shame. Yet this is the common way of all, to lure people by fame, to bind them by ties of gratification. 'Better than extolling Yao and cursing Chieh is oblivion of both, keeping one's praises to oneself. These things react injuriously on self; the agitation of movement results in deflection. 'The true Sage is a passive agent. If he succeeds, he simply feels that he was provided by no effort of his own with the energy necessary to success.' Prince Yüan of Sung dreamed one night that a man with dishevelled hair peeped through a side door and said, 'I have come from the waters of Tsai-lu. I am a marine messenger attached to the staff of the River God. A fisherman, named Yü Ch'ieh, has caught me.' When the prince awaked, he referred his dream to the soothsayers, who said, 'This is a divine tortoise'. 'Is there any fisherman', asked the prince, 'whose name is Yü Ch'ieh?' Being told there was, the prince gave orders for his appearance at court; and the next day Yü Ch'ieh had an audience. 'Fisherman', said the prince, 'what have you caught?' 'I have netted a white tortoise', replied the fisherman, 'five feet in semi-circumference'. 'Bring your tortoise', said the prince. But when it came, the prince could not make up his mind whether to kill it or keep it alive. Thus in doubt, he had recourse to divination, and received the following response: "Slay the tortoise for purposes of divination and good fortune will result." So the tortoise was despatched. After which, out of seventy-two omens taken, not a single one proved false. 'A divine tortoise', said Confucius, 'can appear to prince Yüan in a dream, yet it cannot escape the net of Yü Ch'ieh. Its wisdom can yield seventy-two faultless omens, yet it cannot escape the misery of being cut to pieces. Truly wisdom has its limits; spirituality, that which it cannot reach. 'In spite of the highest wisdom, there are countless snares to be avoided. If a fish has not to fear nets, there are always pelicans. Get rid of small wisdom, and great wisdom will shine upon you. Put away goodness and you will be naturally good. A child does not learn to speak because taught by professors of the art, but because it lives among people who can themselves speak.'

About entering the "dream-state" during meditation, here is a device that I used a number of years ago called the Mirror by some. After quieting the mind, you simply reach out and open a door that is right in front of you and walk through it. Then you travel until you are surrounded by a Nothingness. At that point, almost anything can happen. Sometimes I would put on a cone-shaped hat which would then sprout wings (like the wings of Hermes), and fly through the Mirror into the unknown, visiting strange worlds or beings. Another way I used was to give a ThetaHealing command to take me into a past life, then I'd either push through something like a cloth veil or travel through a tunnel and find myself observing scenes from the "past". You can enter someone else's past life in this way too. Recounting what I saw was almost always a healing experience for the person whose past I had observed. I ran into a device not too long ago which proved to be very effective for entering this other reality. First, you quiet the mind with Autogenic Therapy, ending with "I am at peace" and envisioning a place that brings you peace. The place is called your Peace Image. When you get good at this Autogeninc Therapy, you can move into the "Autogenic State" very quickly and skip the need for lengthy meditation to become quiet. Next, you shrink the image down until it is gone, leaving you with a blank screen. The mind is empty at this point. This is all stuff that I played with a number of years ago, but here is the new part that I just read and tried out. You put an edge on the "blank mind" like a TV screen, then press your fingers together like turning on a TV with a remote control. The "blank mind" screen turns on and you are taken into the world of vision. Affirmations will direct you to where you want to go, be it a past life, or another dimension, or an understanding of something, or the clearing of a blockage. Whatever you choose. Notice the finger pressing which is a Hermetic technique to trigger the opening of your vision. Once you establish this finger pressing as a valid "mudra" to take you into the vision state, you can skip all the other stuff; after a moment of meditation, press your fingers together and off you go into the unknown. There are numerous ways to enter the unknown: Mantras, affirmations, focusing on various energy centers in and around your body, various doorways such as a cave like the Cave of Da Mo, or ... too many to think about. Why do this? NOTE: 'dream science' is a term I made up on the spot to refer to anything you might do consciously or subconsciously to encourage dreams and their interpretation.

Here is a link for Robert Waggoner s Lucid dreaming emagazine . On the page 10 is an interesting story about a woman healing herself in the lucid dream and not having to undergo operation as a concenquence . There are many such testemonies . http://dreaminglucid.com/issues/LDE58.pdf It is interesting how interconnected dream /sleep and waking states are ! So much more depth than to popular common belief of what dreams are . What we take for unshakable reality is a joke .

I did some MCO's in my dreams last night, it was pretty neat . I've had Bagua circle walking dreams before where I woke up with sore legs lol, haven't had one in ages though. I really need to write every dream down, I have found that this brings about far more lucid dreams.

In my view it does not matter how you enter the lucid dreamstate via sleep or hypnosis or active imagination or visualisation or indeed drugs. I think it is the same state. And from my understanding is the landscape of the ethetic body(?) just as earth is the landscape of our physical. Again from what I have read I understand that this vibrates at a higher rate to the physical. And to enter this dreamscape fully we have to leave awareness of our physical body behind. To conciously do this we need energy to vibrate higher, we need concious attention. Jung apparently used to let himself fall into dreams fully concious from waking conciousness. I managed to do this for a while years ago by being as Silent Thunder says lucid in my waking hours. I scared my self shitless though, as in dreams you feel the world and I was not emotionally very balanced at the time. I think it's a good way to experience yourself. Other people in dreamstates also contact spirit guides as Jung and Edwin Steinbrecher did. Would be interested to here others experiences. Edwin saw archetypes as energies and guides as seperate individual being like us. Not sure what you mean by 'dream science'

Hmmm ... does self-hypnotism or meditation where you enter a dream-state, experiencing visions and so forth, count as some type of lucid dream? If so, how does this experience fit in with the "dream science"?

Thanks for that book recommendation looks very very good, have placed that in my 'saved for later' category and will buy it on my next spending spree. There are so many ways one could work in dreams as it is such a creative environment. Years ago I did some 'past life' regression with a woman called Denise Linn which I found to be pretty powerful. In a guided meditation I went through a visual time tunnel into a 'past life' to pull something from the past life to use in the present, did not know where I was going or what I was getting. I went back to the African savana where I was part of nomadic tribe, my ego told me maybe I was here to learn how to be a hunter? I asked my spirit guide Musafa who we were guided by Denise to meet at the entrance to the time tunnel. After some evaluating who I was I asked him why I was there and he showed me a skull and told me I was there to learn peace. Out of nowhere from deep down I felt a big release and cried like a baby. In another session I went back to see my self as a child (again emotional but ultimately healing). What ever I do in dreams I will do it with love as it is all me and thinking about it this is how I should act in the world too :-) Read today that Tibetans say this all a dream: http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/may3/gateways.htm If you can imagine it, you can do it. Many thanks NowHere ∞

Nice. Thanks for finding that post by Sunya. Great point about sequential operation moving from psychological to the spiritual. Sort of like energy cultivation in waking life... first remove blockages, then begin to run energy in a clear system. I'll check out Steinbrecher. I recently checked out this book on Tibetan Dream Yoga. http://www.amazon.com/Tibetan-Yogas-Dream-Sleep/dp/1559391014/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381245408&sr=1-2&keywords=dream+yoga I really like the idea of working with specific organs/chakras.

The Bums have discussed this: http://thetaobums.com/topic/16691-interesting-article-on-lucid-dreaming-energy-work-dream-yoga-etc/ Sunya posted this: Within the Buddhist Tantric tradition there is great emphasis on using the dream state of being for developmental ends. There exists a special practice called "dream yoga," which in the West has been presented as one of the "Six Doctrines of Naropa." The dream yoga is a high meditation practice which is performed by the practitioner within the so-called lucid dream state. Sunya posted this However, working directly and consciously in the lucid dream state is not ac-cessible to very many people. As the dream yoga methods are very strong and direct methods for development, I have committed myself to developing ways of dealing with dreams, which on the one hand provide training towards actual dream yoga practice—the practicing within the lucid dream state—and on the other hand can fruitfully be used to confront and dissolve problematic psychological structures more effectively than by dealing with these in the ordinary waking state. Therefore, it is appropriate to talk about two different levels of purposes, a surface level of psychological observance, and a more subtle level of spiritual observance. Psychologically-oriented practices are concerned mainly with changing our general psychological structures with the purpose of decreasing our everyday prob-lems in relation to self and others. In contrast, the spiritual observance level is a practice level mainly concerned with changing our existential existence, with the purpose of decreasing the distance between, and thus uniting, our rational and non-rational abilities, or our feminine and masculine energies, or our body and mind or substance and consciousness. By healing the gaps and finally uniting subject and object we break the dualistic determination and entrapment of our existence, thus entering into the nature of existence, the essential nature of the universe. It should be noted that distinguishing these two practice levels is provisional. The two levels follow each other sequentially. One must solve one’s major problems on a psychological level before being able to successfully enter the more subtle spir-itual level where changing one’s existential structures in relation to reality occurs. Thanks Sunya :-) There are books on dream alchemy too. 'The Inner Guide to meditation' by Edwin Steinbrecher uses Jung's active imagination to enter this state and work with archetypes. He says you 'feel' the changes when you work in the dream state. I suppose you could work directly with energy centres / organs in a symbolic dream way too. Talking to them and asking how they are, assessing what they need and healing trauma? How ever it's done it should be done with love! NowHere ∞

Very interesting with exciting possibilities. I guess its your etheric energy body(?) your interacting with in dreams and if you manipulate the energy in a dream and are sensitive enough you would feel this on waking? Some times I do a middle of the night cultivating session and when I eventually go back to sleep I usually have lucid dreams and have been wondering what to do with them. I want to train my dream attention and do some kind of energy work. I would say that rabbit hole leads to a very large warren which is all part of the play of consciousness! Very interesting possibilities, thanks for your post. NowHere ∞