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I think so as this is certainly a part of the Listening. ""humbleone" applied the practice I describe in "waking up and falling asleep" to discover an awareness of the place of his consciousness in the back of his head, and he found a recollection of a dream he had many years ago." Possibly similar to how we get into a state to start our sleeping qigong in Stillness-Movement.

I'm talking about the place of occurrence of consciousness, and the impact and ability to feel synonymous with the sense of place associated with consciousness, not the object of mind as the sixth sense organ. That's what I mean by "the place the mind is at the moment". "humbleone" applied the practice I describe in "waking up and falling asleep" to discover an awareness of the place of his consciousness in the back of his head, and he found a recollection of a dream he had many years ago. Not an experience I have had, but there is something about the sense of location in connection with the occurrence of consciousness from moment to moment, and I suspect it's not so different from Listening, although I wouldn't know. Clearly, I already went so far as to say the place of mind was identically the circumstance and the healing approach, but that is based on my experience healing myself of nothing more than my own ignorance of my body and inability to sit the lotus. I'm embarassed, slightly.

The definitive guide to achieving OBE's is Astral Dynamics 2nd Edition by Robert Bruce. He drones on and on, and you could condense the book into a few paragraphs of knowledge but it's still a good author and his system is the best I am aware of. Be careful though. I OBE all the time and sometimes you get stuck in a hell like dream you cannot wake up from, sometimes there is physical pain and suffering and you just have to wait it out. It's not all puppies and rainbows.

I apologize for putting my thoughts on paper when they were not entirely on-topic. I have had some time to think about the fact that you don't experience the location of consciousness below the waist, and writing on my own blog I found these words, which I'll hope are more germane: 'Moshe Feldenkrais wrote about finding support for the lower spine so that the breath could be continued through shifts in posture. To that end, he recommended exercises to experience the basic motions of pitch, yaw, and roll while sitting on a chair. Hypnic phenomena connected with the place of occurrence of consciousness can initiate all three of these basic motions, as necessary for the support of the lower spine in the movement of breath- and do so solely as a result of the place of occurrence of consciousness from moment to moment. Sometimes I recall a Chinese adage that aptly describes the ability to feel that can develop, as the place of occurrence of consciousness responds to the necessity of breath in a given posture or carriage: "the true person, breathing to their heels".' I conclude, as I did a few posts above: "... making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (SN V 2 , Pali Text Society volume 5 pg 175-176, ©Pali Text Society)' There is a relationship for me between the movement of breath, posture or carriage, and the place of occurrence of consciousness. That's a restatement of something of mine you quoted me, without cranial-sacral theory; either way, I don't experience this activity unless I am "waking up or falling asleep", and the initiation of action is a result of the place of occurrence of consciousness rather than my habitual activity of posture. The instances you cite go to the heart of the matter, regarding "zazen that gets up and walks around". I am still trying to offer a description of the relationships involved in this, such that another person can understand the relationships and arrive at the experience. The amygdala is probably involved in stepping on the brakes, memories that are tagged with adrenalin that trigger action when similar circumstances are encountered. But I would also say that psychics teach their art by asking people to catch the images in the mind before the descriptions; your experience with your dream demonstrates that place is a component of the mind catching images before descriptions. With the car, you not only realized what was happening before mental comprehension, but your awareness moved to where your whole body could be thrown into action before your full comprehension. I've had that kind of experience, and that was my take when I stopped to reflect on it, my awareness shifted. Kind of like falling down, yes. Puts me in mind of the time I was held up, out behind a McDonald's in San Francisco. I was the janitor, cleaning the mop outside the back entrance, when a guy jumped the fence. I thought it was our breakfast cook at first, same build with his cap low and grinning, but then he raised a paper bag with his hand in it. I closed and grabbed the barrel, long-barreled thing it was- then I had a split second to decide if I was letting go or jumping him. I realized he didn't mean to do any harm, and let go. He was pissed, marched me inside and had us all face down on the floor, then he disappeared with the weekend receipts. A week later, I read in the paper that two German tourists were held up on Bush street by a short man with a long-barreled gun. They thought it was a joke, and tried to jump him; he shot one of them in the kneecap and one in the shoulder, I think it was. Writing about myclonic twitches and writing in response to you in general brings me back to letting go of all the things I do when I sit, and otherwise. It's a good place to be in, I think. Sometimes I feel like my words are my archery, and I am looking for "it" to place the words on paper to change my life and this world (hopefully for the better?). Truth is, only all sentient beings together can do this.

Likewise, humbleone, makes my day to hear about your experience with this. I find consciousness in a lot of places, when I stop and turn the light around, as it were. Also the fact that I am attending to the sense of place can tend to move that sense of place. I get a sense of consciousness as located in my head, in my chest, sometimes in my arms, often in my legs. I work at opening my ability to feel by hanging with the sense of place, and sometimes it seems like it helps to take inventory of the places my mind doesn't go and see if I have feeling there. Like my backside, and my calves. Putting my attention on the pivots of the sacrum tends to cause my sense of place to actually shift to the hara, isn't that a weird one? I'm focusing attention on the sacrum, but when I relax and slip into sense of place, my consciousness is at the hara without quite giving up the sacrum. I guess that's the ability to feel and the place of consciousness in relation, somehow! Like to experience that more. The bit about the dream memory at the back of the mind, wow.

Thanks Sunya! i have been meaning to start practicing dreaming again for so long and now i am reading the book i mentioned, and Tenzin Wangyal's The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. so when i finish with those i will check out the Crystal and the Way of Light! I'm just into the introductions and im reading a couple other books, so i don't know when i will actually start dreaming, but when i get some foundation to talk about, maybe i will start a thread for the dreamers here! that would be cool do you know of any other books from the tibetan perspective on "lucid dreaming"? you can PM me if you don't want to derail the thread

awesome...that's a great book for dream practice. I would recommend also getting Crystal and Way of Light

i am reading my first book by him, Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light which reminds me of another great living master, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Bon shaman and meditation master

I know probably after reading this you guys will think I've lost my mind, maybe I have. I just woke up from an in between sleep/waking state in which I was meditating in my dream. When I woke up my body felt like I was covered in pounds of a black tar, a deep humming and vibration was so loud I could barely hear anything else, and it was like I was moving in slow motion. Literally when I tried to bend down towards the ground I felt resistance that acted against gravity. There were red lights coating the inside of the walls like they were glowing red, and reality fluctuated for about 5 seconds in which reality reacted to my thoughts, the cats in the house started going absolute bat shit. I wasn't anywhere near an area where dishes fell and broke, nor were the cats on the counter to knock them off. The other person here where I am staying woke up as well as if having a nightmare. I am still pretty shaken up, I am still biting my finger to try and determine if I am dreaming. Not sure what to make of it.

Good questions. There is not complete certainty. Also I cannot really put a finger on it. The best I can do is say that which is unchanging is the space in which everything arises in. That which holds everything, but actually isn't anything itself. As a thought rises up in the mind, this space is what carries it and is behind it. When I go to sleep I am not mindful enough to know I am sleeping, I have only had a lucid dream a few times. Can you give me a few pointers and point me in the right direction.

Ooh! Lucky you! I hope to get that copy and most of Master Hua's other books as well. His 9 volume translation and commentary set on the Shurangama Sutra / Mantra is amazing. Can only dream of how awesome his 10 volume translation/commentary on the Lotus Sutra must be as well.

The first absolute bodhicitta proverb says, "Treat everything you perceive as a dream." For me, fun is each moment I'm aware of that. Lao Tzu purportedly said, "Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth." Hua Hu Ching 48. Fun for me is each moment that saying comes before my ignorance. V

I can't directly speak on what the lotus posture can or can't do, but I think that the first sentence Joe Blast has given you cannot be understated. In China there is the phrase, 动则生阳: movement gives birth to yang. Your condition certainly sounds like one of yang insufficiency. In fact, even your statement, "maybe something that doesn't take more than 20 minutes so i can focus on my sitting practices," is an indicator of this. As one of my closest teachers has said more than once, "when the student is inclined to sit more and more, this is generally a sign that s/he needs to practice more movement. When the student is inclinded to move more and more, this is generally a sign that s/he needs to practice more sitting." In my opinion, garnered in part from personal experience, in part from listening to teachers, and in part from observing patients visiting the TCM doctors I study with in China, this point is really very important if you want to overcome the health problems you've mentioned. If you really only have twenty minutes to spare but want to get your yang qi moving, then I am inclined to suggest that, like Joe Blast says, you do something that really gets you to "break a sweat, motivate fluids of all sorts, eat, rest." Motivating fluids is probably very important for a person reporting a weak immune system--you gotta get that lymph fluid moving! I don't know anything about rebounding but Mr. Lomax certainly seems to know his stuff, so you might want to look into that. If you want to get the kind of results you're looking for from gentler practices, you're probably going to need to invest more time. As another of my teachers says, "gong fu is nothing other than the time you spend." I've been seeing great improvements in my health lately with nothing more than an increase in my standing and circle-walking practices. But we're talking 45 minutes of the former and 1 1/2 to 2 hours of the latter, day in, day out. A mere twenty minutes of either ain't gonna do ya! Conversely, I have a lot of friends out here who wish for major health benefits from a quarter or half hour of gentle taiji or qigong movements done here and there. Others in our modern world where most people barely move all day somehow dream of fixing their body with even more sitting! Unfortunately, from what I see around me, this path just doesn't seem to work unless you're at such a high level that your internal qi movement is as great or greater than what you would get from serious exercise. I only know two people at that level. One is 89 and lives in a cave, the other meditates all day and barely eats. Us normal folk require movement!

I've been reading Sufi writings lately. Sufi Shayks also have their students do many prostrations to empty out the Ego. Indeed I'm convinced Muhammad required it 5x a day in Islam for exactly that reason. To drain out the Ego and especially drain out the Ego's self-centeredness and pride. In particular I've been really loving the book The Sufi Science of Self-Realization: A Guide to the 17 Ruinous Traits, the 10 Steps to Discipleship, and the Six Realities of the Heart It is clear there is Spiritual Wisdom in the Middle East every bit as ancient as those found in India and China. On the very first page I grinned because I immediately recognized Shayk Kabbani describing No-Self realization (although Sufi's don't call it "No-Self" but there was absolutely NO mistaking he was describing No-Self)! Tibetan Buddhism also has a prostration practice. I think it's called Ngrondo. There seems to be something activated by bowing that helps the ego dissolve. However, I was under the impression one needed to be part of a lineage for it to work. But maybe it works even for those who do not have a formal teacher or guide of any kind. I'm pretty keen on trying anything that will empty out both thoughts and the ego. I remember reading something from Paramhansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. "Don't do what you want, then you may do what you like." I dream of the day of having that kind of freedom.

Just to be clear, I was speaking of ancient Christianity and even ancient Judaism...not modern Christianity, which demonizes dream interpretation and divination. Lots of interesting stuff hidden in the OT...

Sure. Native Americans are all about the dream stuff. It's intriguing. My own personal problem with the "bible" is that I think it was tampered with in a major way. Some people with an agenda literally added quite a few things. The scribes and priests in those days were pretty skilled (and devious?). As a result I don't trust much of it to give me "the real deal". Bits and pieces. A lot of good articles here by Melissa Cutler w/plausible proof: http://www.original-bible.com/ We have a tough job as decent humans. Lots of junk to sift through. The thing that attracted me to the Tao is the distillation of things down to the most important part. The writings directly link to the reality of the human situation. None of it goes overboard. There is no hype or outlandish situations. Just saying. Not arguing or anything.

Finding a good teacher is something difficult as from expirience and from expirience by others who run 30 years around (I befriend often much older in the past, since they are better to talk, have developed the concious, finding young people.... you want me to play the lottery and win- waste of money- gamblers like to say they feel the luck? People like Milarepa. This perhaps are story of people who had make it into history. History do not talk about losers and victims in a documentary they are not the main protagonist when they are not relevant in the developement and story of the "winner" And each of us is not directly Milarepa, some really search like one of my Uncles to believe in immortals or wonders for 40 years and he was riding China up and down as well Vietnam and for some kind of reason he not find the wonder he was seeking for only recentyl on behalf of told by my father that I may do the same mistake he told me to stop everything (well I cultivate at that time half of interest and half because my Chronic Fatique interferes with my life) so my father told about Sifu Joong (forget in which US State he immigrated) a friend and both were than telephone with him. And I would if I accept become the only student of him in Bagua Tai Chi Chuan - and he refuse to accept others. (Rare lineage, can be read at martial arts exeperts.com or so. Well Uncle Phan has then vist Sifu Joong (no school, work on the roads), and he is prone in is Fighting Skills in Hung Gar KungFu who can lift with one arm 4 tires of a truck and still likes to fight in his age. But well seeing Sifu Joong perform Tai Chi and use "Sheng Qi" moving things around call wind, Uncle Phan compares him with Jet Li in Tai Chi as being more impressive. And he not dare to spare with him. Well meeting the wonder he seeks after 40 years with out seeking is different than his 40 years active search and this man only fear to look old! It is that you may just run around and let go that the teacher may scout you, because he saw you in a dream or had been told by the spirt world to look for signs. Else like Sifu Joong remaing quite not even sorrow that the Art level of the teachings is lost to a new generation for already rare lineage, just doing his job as a steet worker doing the roads instead of opening and make him known trough the states by participating in contest - no- just humble work and humble genuine exercise. And giving me an offer and here I do not "put in the effort to find your teacher and genuine teachings", I did was I did and still I have not put my ass over the seas and spare my money for stay there for a while.

I noticed you mentioned synchronicity in an earlier post. That was happening to be like crazy when I had the idea to make a 42Hz CD and do metta meditation each night. When I started meditating with it each day it got worse and worse, to the point it was absurd. Reality began to feel exactly like a dream, because there was no way for so many coincidences, ironies and synchronous events to happen. It might be a warning for you, not to advance. I think an EEG and software to watch your brainwaves for feedback would be a much much safer alternative than forcing your brainwaves into a state. Remember gamma is linked to consciousness itself, start screwing with it and it might disrupt your disrupt your input/output carrier signal. It could lead you to a point in your life where you no longer accept the reality you are living in as a real world, I don't even though that happened in 2005. Just my $0.02

Why was that burden gone? What did consciously change? Wouldn't it give your insight into what kept it alive before that dream?

I guess you have meditation practice that made the binaural beats that effective, but I can try the 42 Hz. I had limited success with inducing a 6 Hz half-aware dream state by applying the frequency to brown noise using a special program. I'm curious about what will happen if I continually listen to 42 Hz. What means did you use? How exactly did you create the sound that worked for you? I'm not sure whether my brown noise will not ruin the effect at such a high frequency.

I don't think all schools are real, well they are only schools in the same way life in general is in that they teach you from your mistakes, but I would imagine it is clear to most of the people here that in Taoism expecially there are all sorts of frauds and people only teaching minor fragments of a larger system. If you believe stories about "the ancients" they once had a far more complete knowledge of which acupuncture, qigong and energy work etc was just a part of it, but people now are treating that one fragment as a complete system in itself, but what if in some places the complete teaching remains which have complete teachings on the psyche, the energy body, astrology, healing, meditation, sacred architecture, divination, dream body, physical health, etc all together. All the different teachings can compliment each other for a complete education. A zen monk may say all that is unnecessary and all you have to do is sit, but it is clear that certain groups and societies through history had a more complete knowledge than we have now, for example the Egyptians who built the pyramids and Luxor temple had a high knowledge about many aspects of life which now may be lost, and people like Wang Liping had a fat more complete spiritual education than just sitting.

Death died like a deep dream one finally awakens from, replaced by freedom to "Fear not" and doubt not. Further, there is no dissoulution of the real, for niether "death" nor "life" can reach it, thus the real worries not of forms coming and going for worry is not of its nature.

Some schools have the beef, others don't. If you enjoy having a spiritual life and that's all you care about then it's fine to screw around with philosophies and practices that don't actually do anything, as long as you enjoy the ride that's all that matters. As for me I can't enjoy the ride. Every moment of every day death is with me. Every time I glance in the mirror, every time I take a breath, I am reminded of my own mortality, but more importantly that I am going to wind up in another dream like this one if I can't get out before I die, and I lose all my memories, identity, ego, and personality too so my odds of getting on a path to break out the next cycle are reduced to baseline. I want to become a being not bound by reincarnation. Anything else to me is a waste of time. That's just my take on the matter.

I determine what is sane and what is not. My ego is like water, it can take on the shape I want it to take. Tulku... After years of fighting the ego, I have realized that the ego is really nothing. Like a dream monster. You can fight it and make it grow worse. Or you can offer it a cup of tea and it will transform into a purring baby kitten before your very eyes. After such an experience, it feels pointless to fight your ego, because there is no ego. We are it, and we can be what we want to be. Its like fighting a reflection and then you become scared because the reflection fights back. Then you declare war and the reflection seems to do the same.

Sometimes what you want is better than what you have though. If you get all those material things or the dream job or the perfect mate. Well then what... Working folks blues, working hard to buy those things you want, but then you don't enjoy since you just work til you're exhausted to pay the bills.