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Why not go through the process for people.... Seeing as you mention its a core skill of a magus...You must be very familiar with the mechanics? What are the conditions needed for it to arise? What are the somatic feelings one experiences? How can you tell the difference between an actual conscious separation vs a lucid dream?

Well, mulling over it again I have the following interpretations : 1. Doing some tai-chi exercises the day before cleared blockage in the nerve channel (sort of like removing a clamp). Some sources say that healing properties of sleep are attributed to brain function reaching lower frequencies aka Theta state, and the autonomous nervous system does the healing. A familiar vet told me cats can excrete a needle they swallow by accident without experiencing any harm, so the body's innate potential for healing is very high. The dream itself, it that case, would be "a finger pointing to the moon". 2. I got a dream visit from someone nice and benevolent C: 3. I was doing this and that the night before (didn't come), so the episode had something to do with sublimation of DA SEX JUICE. I love dreaming! I used to have many dreams where I could pseudo-fly by propelling myself in the air like a jellyfish, was able to run around on all fours and leap several meters in the air. An interesting dream was particularly vivid dream was one I got sometime in my first year after graduation, in winter : an education official was praising we for graduating, and the dream me had tears streaming from his eyes, grabbed the official by the collar and yelled : 'You don't get it! I want to become the sun!'. I mulled over it for several years, since the interpretation of the Sun in our school physics seemed out of question. The breakthrough was when I encountered the reading of Rider Waite Tarot called Journey of the Fool, where The Sun corresponds to embodying effortless effort. That's what led to TTC.

while not into magic as a practice, I can comment on lucid dreams. after sitting in meditation for years, every day, My dreams changed to being lucid. did not "do" anything to make this happen, and at first it surprised me. I then came to see that this is nothing special, most folks who have any kind of long term meditation practice can end up with there dreams lucid. From my dreaming I see both the so called, "dream world" and the "real world" as being very much alike. In fact, i no longer know what the words, "real and un-real" mean other than a mental place holder or belief we are socialized to accept. One of my lucid dreams started off as the "being naked in public" dream, where I am nude, and no one else seems to notice, except me. common dream for many. then I knew I was dreaming, and decided to have some fun, and started to shout to everyone "Hay! look at me, I am buck ass naked" . most folks did not pay attention, but one man saw me and started to laugh. I stuck my dream hand through his chest, and he dissipated like a mist. I immediately knew that I did something wrong. Because although this was a dream, there was still a part of "realness" about it. still feel bad for that screw up.

for all who have been following this thread: I ve come to an important clarification. My “story/milieu “ is on a very symbolic/image level of visceral ness. It’s not purely in words and unskillful thought. I just woke up from a nap/meditation dream. I was drifting in water that was hellish and I went pretty close to falling into the pits/a significantly deeper level. Faced with this I spotted a cavern with a bed covered in rocks and unplugged computers where I was going to take refuge for the night. I think this dream was largely spurred on by getting a lack of response on spiritual/dharmic dating sites after giving it a hell of an effort, combined with the very real alienation I feel from so many to varying extent. The past two nights I ve been going back to my old habit of laying down early just to either recharge from exhaustion or because there feels like no other refuge. im not in crisis or in danger of self harm. I just have no other outlet. I fluctuate between cheerful lighthearted ness and the purgatory of my psyche. I hope this refuge bears fruit 🙏🏼

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 ∞

You're referring not to sleep paralysis, but lucid dreaming. Dream initiated lucid dreaming to be precise, since you became aware of the fact that you were dreaming when the dream had already began. This can be terrorizing, but also euphoric in many cases. I have no idea why, but these emotions simply have been added to our repetoire of emotional experiecables. Sleep paralysis might occur prior to the dream, and after the dream. During the dream however, you don't say your body is paralyzed, because you're too busy moving your dream body or sometimes even "non-body." Trying to wake yourself up? Some people try to become lucid in a dream for years without succes. It's very weird when you say "I was trying to wake myself up." From that perspective it's like saying "I got a kiss on my cheeks from a beautiful woman, and I was trying to take it off." Whaaaaaaaaaat? I've experienced that terrors are infact nothing more then initiation into full lucidity. There's a certain amount of awareness one can built up in the dream, which brings many things to your awareness. To reach that, you have to "pass" certain fears. If you succesfully pass these fears, being creative, you will enter full lucidity, and you can basicly do whatever you wish. A free universe, eternity to choose from. To pass these fears you have to clean up your vibrational bagage. All of your habbitual thoughts, meaning learned believes, etc. You have to become as pure in mind as you are in soul. And the way to do that is to HAVE FUN. Nothing is more pure then joy itself. Don't fight the terror, because it is you. You cannot win from You. Believe me, I've tried to win from myself in my dreams, I fought my own dream, but I cannot win from myself. You are your own greatest fear, so face yourself! Recognize the YOU in YOUR DREAM! ALL OF IT IS YOU. You are the dreamer, you are the dream. You are biting your own ear off. Why would you be in terror with yourself? It makes no sense. Simply stop biting your own ear off. Whatever you do, don't deny you are biting your own ear off. You can't change what you don't own. We hardly own anything in our lives anymore. Atleast own your dreams, and work you way up from there.

Can you please elaborate more on Spirits in dreams? I am doing a research on this right now. Maybe you can help me with the following questions? ( If in a lucid dream) 1. The spirit has a shape and form and looks "healthy" and is physically talking to you/touching you - is it a real spirit or your subconsciousness? 2. The spirit has a shape and a form, but "feels ghostly" ( as it was traveling from the far away and should not be here) and is physically talking to you/touching you - is it a real spirit or your subconsciousness? 3. If next day you see in a dream a vigil by people you know alive for the spirit who came to you night before ( the spirit of a dead person) - does it mean they sent that spirit back. ( Just connecting two dreams together, the spirit was talking ( but I have no memories), holding my third eye for very long time in a dream (but it felt very physical), and I also "felt" it ( spirit) is not supposed to be "here" ( this dimension). I told someone in RL about my strange dream and next day I saw a dream about vigil. I have a strong suspicion they did a ritual to send this spirit back (???). Do you have any book references on dreamwork ( not new age lucid dreaming stuff, but something preferably "original" translations of the old texts?) -meow thanks ***** p.s. The spirit in question is a spirit of a teacher of a person whom I told about my strange dream. I have not studied with this teacher ( at least in this lifetime) and never seen this teacher in person. The person I told my dream to was studying with that teacher for a very long time. There was no conversations/actions/etc which would trigger such dreams ( i.e. spoke about the teacher before going to bed, etc). I saw this teacher twice in my dreams: one time last February where he was "alive feeling" and now this February where he is a "ghost feeling".

I've realized that the Tree of Life is the Universal grid that we are all connected to. It resides in our ethereal bodies, and it is the plane on which magick takes place. You can use your Will to affect others here, and to call on the various beings that live on it. We share in the health of our people and all things in Creation. What we do carries over into the ethereal and affects reality. At the head of the tree is Kether, and in Kether resides God. Outside of the Tree are other Gods, who interact with the Tree, and can affect reality. Each of the ten Sephiroth are worlds, and contain the rest of the Sephiroth in them, into infinity. The worlds function according to their main attribute, and the subsequent worlds are lessons in that one attribute, affected by the secondary attribute of the world it travels on its individual tree. When you have dreams, you look for the lesson in it, and can decipher what Sephiroth you are travelling in. In the end, it is all the same, and there is only one Sephiroth, Kether, and in it we are all God, and God is us, for God is all that is; everything and the only thing. When we dream, we meet other incarnations of people that have lived, for their souls are infinite, and their incarnations are infinite, but there is only one you, and you too experience the various incarnations of yourself. It is in the ethereal and astral that the law is Do What Thou Wilt, because in it is everything. On Earth, we are closer to it than before, but there will always be other laws that govern us, and these laws will change, though my definition of Good and Evil will probably always be the same here; Good is to aid, and Evil is to harm someone else's health, wealth, or liberty.

There are some techniques in this book: Practice of Brahmacharya - Sri Swami Sivananda " Do not overload your stomach at night. The night meals should be very light. Half a litre of milk or some fruits will constitute a good regimen or menu at night. " " A sexual act shatters the nervous system. The whole nervous system is shaken or agitated during the act. There is excessive loss of energy. More energy is wasted during coition. But it is not so when emission occurs during the dreaming state. In a wet dream, it may be the outflow of the prostatic juice only. Even if there is loss of the vital fluid, there is not much draining. The actual essence does not come out during wet dreams. It is only the watery prostatic juice with a little semen that is discharged during nocturnal pollutions. When nocturnal emission takes place, the mind which was working in the inner astral body suddenly enters the physical body vehemently in an agitated condition. That is the reason why emission takes place suddenly. "

As for lucid dreaming: I was always fascinated by dreams and started keeping a dream journal in college and tried to will my way to lucid dreaming bc I wanted to escape the mundanity of the worldly world. I longed for anything transcendental. Once the nightmares started I lost my interest in dream analysis for a long time. After being coerced to take psychiatric medication + lack of sunlight+ exercise for years, combined with having a scientifically abnormal REM sleep pattern, I started dreaming A LOT. When I was discharged from the hospital after 34 long months and I started sleeping in a new environment (and started walking hours a day in my house) I just spontaneously started lucid dreaming every night. If I could undo the lucid dreaming part I would definitely consider it but to do so at this point seems like I would have to take a lot of unnatural and guided steps I don’t know how to take. So I’m planning on just taking the good with the bad as far as dreams are concerned for the time being. *Puts on Chuang Tzu colored glasses 🕶

Dreams can provide clues and insight about the life in the waking state. The experience can also become valuable if we become lucid in such dreams -- some lucid dreams I had were valuable experiences to me. I have had dreams where there was imminent harm or death as you have described before. I haven't had these kinds of dreams in a while. At the moment where it gets pretty intense, I used to wake up. But, this changed subsequently. Later, when I got dreams where there was imminent danger, the realization struck I am in a dream right away. The dream became lucid almost always in such cases. When it becomes lucid, it gets very interesting. I can watch it without getting affected, or I can transform the entire scene. For instance, once I was in a dream similar to the one that you described, my car was about to crash in a bad accident in moments. It is amazing, how fast the realization that it is a dream can strike and how quickly the entire scene can be transformed. In the next moment, I was on a beautiful open green field just enjoying the bliss and aliveness of it all. I think it is wonderful that you were able to stay in the dream despite the imminent danger and observe it, and later be able to reflect upon it. If such dreams have not already become lucid for you (bringing out your presence and be able to see yourself apart from the dream), then I would say you are very close.

http://www.classicreader.com/book/1370/11/ The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain Chapter 11 For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while. He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his return. "And you are going away, and will not come back any more?" "Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each other any more." "In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?" Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is no other." A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true--even must be true. "Have you never suspected this, Theodor?" "No. How could I? But if it can only be true--" "It is true." A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words, and I said, "But--but--we have seen that future life--seen it in its actuality, and so--" "It was a vision--it had no existence." I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. "A vision? --a vi--" "Life itself is only a vision, a dream." It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times in my musings! "Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space--and you!" "I!" "And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me.... "I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better! "Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries, ages, eons, ago! --for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!... "You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks--in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier. "It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!" He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. ~ Mary Oliver

In my whole life, I probably have a handful of these dream encounters. Basically, the being I encountered in my dreams....the experience caused my third eye to open and to experience the nimitta. The dream started off of me being in a wedding party. I couldn't figure out whose wedding was it. I felt it was my wedding party but couldn't figure out who was my fiance. Then, I found myself on the second floor and noticed that the head of state of this particular country was walking up. Here, I assumed the identity of my past life self. I couldn't believe what I was seeing because the leader of my country was attending this party. I made my way to the side and noticed staff members I knew about. Then, someone in the group pulled out a gun and began shooting. I quickly rushed to the lower level and felt the need to warn the first lady. Or I felt the situation wasn't safe and I was compelled to warn the wife of a very important political figure. I found her and addressed her in another language, or her language. Then, she left quickly. Somehow, I wanted to go back up to see if everyone was OK. Then, I was greeted by this being. He is light skin black, more of a Jamaican. I believed his name was Gordon or something sounded similar. We both introduced ourselves and we shake hands. This was when I began to see the nimitta glowing in my third eye. I closed my eyes for a second in the dream and all I saw, in the dream, was the nimitta (whitish, bluish light). During my meditation I often see the nimitta but to see it in a dream induced situation is "something." Here, I realized he wasn't just a figure. He was a spirit being. I remembered looking at him very intensely and he had a smile on his face all the times. There was a woman next to him too but I didn't know who. Then, he began telling me things. Something about he has spent 20 minutes trying to raise my consciousness. He even went so far to grab my hand and to show me the time on my watch TWICE. I told him I saw him before in my previous dream. I had a dream about him before this one, maybe few hours before. From that dream, he told me that he was a detective for a brief period of his life. Then, he told me that everything would be happening normally. After hearing that, I was disappointed because, I told him, I thought that something would happen to me. He then said that the wedding party would continue next week. I am still single and so I don't really understand this dream. The number 20 has been a key component because it represents a time frame of my future. More than 6 months ago, I dream that the Hindu goddness Tara telling me she had predicted my future 20 years ago. So, now, number 20 has been repeated again by this being. The beginning of the dream seems to be referencing to my past life identity. I don't know. I don't have a clue what he meant when he said things would be happening normally and the wedding would be continued next week. I had this dream last week, fyi.

I can try. In my experience, dreams are primarily concerned with disentangling the mind from all unreality with their often merciless truth, to me they are a perfect mirror of our emotional dysfunction and false ego self, and in various ways a perfect guide towards the ‘ocean’. If there is a disparity between my conscious thought and a dream, I accept the dream’s version to be more real (as long as it has been correctly interpreted), and work to align my thinking with the dream’s version of reality. If I ignore the dream's version of reality, then my mind makes the decision to accept my false ego self's version of reality. I currently believe that dreams are actually formed in Ajna chakra, and are like small packets of information from this source which has always remained connected to the ‘ocean’. I see the seeming distortion of dreams as being the distance the dream message has to travel between Ajna and our conscious mind’s ability to comprehend the message. When this distance is lessened by our conscious mind/consciousness moving towards Ajna’s way of seeing, dreams tend to become less distorted because the conscious mind and its ability to perceive actual reality has been correctly cultivated. Also as this distance lessens, Ajna can start to communicate knowledge and actual reality directly when awake. So basically what I’m saying is that it is the conscious mind’s wrong thinking and subsequent distortion that causes the problem with dreams, not the dream’s problem, so ‘dream-like’ is a misnomer, as ‘dream-like’ can more truthfully refer to actual reality.

Poor Karl...you need to stay away from this discussion. You aren't qualified to answer it because you have never received your mind transmission from a Sambhogakaya being from a dream and resulting in your enlightenment, at least partially, in your waking consciousness. Rendering the kundalini energy rising or the completion of the micro cosmic orbit possible, in your waking life. Without a physical master. For the OP, lay persons, uncultivated mind, won't have a clue to answer it. The reality is that your reality can be a dream and your dream becomes a reality only if you managed to liberate yourself and to be reborn in the heavenly realm. In another words, when you die or in a deep state of samadhi. Until then, dream still has certain dream like quality but yet a potential reality if things do unfold the way the dream envisioned. For a cultivated person, dream and reality are often not so clear. The danger is that you become paralyzed mentally in your own reality because your dreams are telling you something different. Well, you don't trust everything in your reality and why would you trust everything coming out from your dreams. Practice not clinging...you will be fine. FYI, you don't always dream about the Tao or in conversation with some heavenly beings. Once in a while, you get some low level crazy dreams.

I hope you guys can remain open enough to atleast talk about this. This is not really science. I'm simply trying to digg in my subconscious and make it conscious. Basicly, there are all allot of patterns in everything. Look at your hands. Are they really yours? We recognize them as being the same hand troughout all our lives. Yet this is just one hand out of infinite you have had and will have. Every single moment you have a new pair of hands. This is so obvious that we have become oblivious to this fact. You sit comfortably in your home, thinking that it is the home you have always come to know. It is not. This home has changed so much over time, yet you see more similarities then diffrences. This is because of a flaw in your memory. Everything that you own is not yours, but it is all from your past life. The only thing that never changes is us. The energy. The energy that moves the body and feels love. When you die, you will simply wake up from the dream you were having. Yet you remain a sleep in that dimension aswell. You will crave yet again to return to this beautiful dream you were having one more time. There were so many things you didn't do yet! So you return within the dream and you think its real again, so you again forget to recall the reason you are here! We keep forgetting and remain stuck in this rat race! The only way to recall your purpose here is to wake up. But if we wake up, that means death. Death to your identity in this reality that you have come to accept. So suicide wont really help. It will wake you up, but you will just crave to return again, because you did not fulfill your purposr here. So you will go asleep again and start a new life here in this dream. So, how do we wake up, while still remaining within this dream? Obviously, fear does not help the waking up process. To little fear kills you and you wake up too much! Unless you can remain fearless, accept you're in a dream yet stay occupied by the dream at the same time. Pretend that this is all real while you know it is fake. We have to stay in between the dream and waking state. So that we can do whatever we want here without having fear limit us. In between life and death. Like Bruce Lee would say, learn to die while still allive. But how? Has anyone done this, and how to go about doing this? I'm not really worried about wasting this dream, since we will all eventually wake up. I just want to wake up now, without dieing, so that I can take more from this dream. Please understand that I am looking for exact words that will work everytime I apply them. I have woken up many times in my life and left all kind of messages of remembering that I am asleep. When I read my own message towards my self, it makes no sense! All that I can extract from the message is to die! I have to denie my own existance! Yet I was alive when I wrote it. How did I die while still remaining alive? I cannot recall the transition. I can only recall the stages where I was already awoke. It was very lucid and my ability to predict to communicate with my subconscious was incredible. I wish to write music one time in this woken stage. First I have to recall how I woke up. I just recall that I was like "this is all a dream!" Yet I was not afraid, but I did not end my life either! I was still dreaming while woken up. I hope with more experience can help me reproduce this. I just try to say to say to myself that this is all fake and a dream. I cannot do it. All I can think of is the afterlife. I only desire death and become afraid of life when I think all is fake. It becomes a nightmare. How do I accept all fakeness yet remain fearless? It cab be really scary to walk around really confused. Where everyhing you knew turns out to be fake. I'm also afraid of waking up completely, in the form of death. I was not afraid of this when I did manage to pull of the dieing while still remaining alive thing! Everytime I pull it of, all I can think of is analyzing the experience so that I can reproduce it. I just can't write it down! The only thing I manage to convey trough words is death... Like some kind of total egoless state. That is basicly death... How on earth can we die while still remaining alive? Because in all my lucid experiences I keep wriing this fact down, in diffrent words, over and over again. Yet I do not recalling any death prior to reaching the egoless state. How can this be? Does this mean we can never write down the thing that took away our ego without taking us out of this dream, by waking us up trough death? So you try to word it. See how deep thinkers you guys are. One theory of mine, is this: In order to wake up, you must first go to sleep. So we can train ourselves at night, while sleeping, to wake up without having the dream fade away. Basicly, this is really hard because once you fall asleep you will forget your purpose of waking up up within the dream. Do you see the similarity here? As above, so below... Does this mean we are current living in Hell or does my fear of waking up bound my soul this place of eternal recycling and mandlebrot.

Limahong so yes, that was one of the "nature"s I mentioned and as you said, it is dependent. It appears that everyone here who argues for the existence of the self can not argue their view without relying on magical ideas of how it exists. no one who's view is that the self exists can argue that with pure reason and so the conversation devolves into pics that have a vague connection to off topic comments accompanied by indiscernable off topic ramblings. if anything, form, or phenomenon exist it will have characteristics. Anything with characteristics gets the characterization and it's being/activity from what it is dependent on and nothing originates or exists indipendently of the conditions and causitive factors that characterize it into being. this is not a religious axiom or belief like "I have a soul", but is a logical observation that holds true when applied to anything that can not be refuted. ...and as far as dreamers having self in my dreams I often experience the dream from several perceptions within the dream. I am not always my usual identity in my dreams, some times the dream is viewed from more than one of the dreams characters view point. often I am not even sure which of the characters in a dream I am, or if I am more than one, or if my perception of the dream is from all the characters and even none of them

Hello all, I am new here and have just started meditation. Yesterday, I had a vivid dream where I went to the toilet to urinate and as I was standing I began to pee dark thick blood. Anyone else had this one? This was a first for me. ps. I am a man.

TL/DR: Is Taoism as practiced generally realistic (i.e. saying everything is real), idealistic (everything is consciousness) or something else? Background: In Buddhism as I’m familiar with it, there is a tradition of Cittamatra or “Mind Only.” This can have two meanings: 1) that everything is mind, or 2) that everything we know is an expression of mind. In philosophy, the first would be an ontological statement, meaning it is a statement about what things are or made of. The second is an epistemological statement, meaning that while everything arises as a transformation of consciousness, no further statement is made as to what happens outside of experience. In the second case, it isn’t relevant. The drawback to the ontological position is that it leaves many things unexplained. Traleg Kyabon Rinpoche uses the example of some one who is asleep and has their head crushed by a falling rock. If no one is around, the conscious being is asleep and completely unaware, how could this happen? Some responses to this include a broad diffusion of consciousness (everything is conscious) or positing a larger consciousness (God, which was Berkeley’s solution). The Buddhist scholar/practitioner Douglas Duckworth makes a strong case in my mind that the general approach is to say that everything is ontologically empty, but epistemologically consciousness. Mipham, the lion of the Nyingmas, says that relatively, Cittamatra is correct (with the exception that the mind is not truly established, which isn’t necessarily a Cittamatra position IMHO), while ultimately, everything is empty. The Buddhist approach seems to demote the waking state (which we may take as real) into the dream state (which we don’t). Hans-Georg Moeller in Daoism Explained claims that the Taoists do the opposite—they regard the dream and waking state as both authentic, or real. In this way, they would promote the dream state into the same position as the waking state. Is he right? What would the Taoist position be in your experience?

I'd say in taoism it's a moot point. Zhuangzi wrote his butterfly dream parable to illustrate that. The back-and-forth between the ideal "dream world" of Xiantian and the manifest world of Houtian is constant, and that's what's real. Consciousness is also a moot point, because nothing can really be unconscious. A sleeping man's state is not unconscious even if he doesn't dream. His organs are taking turns taking little naps, is all. The heart is still conscious, the liver is still conscious, the kidneys are still conscious, the brain stem still regulates the breathing. And none of it is unconscious or unaware. None of it is a machine. The stomach is still aware of that bag of chips you ate with the late night movie and is working on that. The kidneys and the bladder are still aware that there's a cup of tea or a can of beer that have been presented to them to deal with alongside all that salt in the chips. Even more aware if it was a six-pack rather than just one can. No amount of ideas in the head or in the scriptures about the bladder being "empty like all phenomena" is going to stop it from waking you up in the middle of the night with the contradicting message that it is quite full, and in need of conscious emptying.

The main danger is to literally lose your mind. When driven by fear and illusion, it's easy to become paranoid, and experience psychosis. It could affect physical health as well. The other most frequent danger is getting lost within your little world of illusions you built by yourself. Visualization is one part of the practice that leads to Third Eye activation. When done improperly, it could damage you physically (losing eyesight for example, or having issues with brain blood circulation). As you pointed out, it's used in dream yoga (what we do is lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and astral travel). Those have their own dangers as well. For example, you can get drained very significantly if you encounter a hostile creature. Death leading to enlightenment is a good concept, but it's more in the "realm of gods", as for regular cultivators and even masters such a high level is not attainable. You practically need to become a Buddha or something.

The double helix spiral structure of DNA ... discovered by Crick & Watson. Many different ideas for the structure had been proposed but they were not right, and one night I believe it was Watson who dreamt of a spiraling staircase. And this lead to the discovery, he woke up the next day and used his dream image to assemble the structure. It seems this dream is being erased from Wikipedia and other sources, because it is insulting to the image of what is called "research science" upon which many salaries depend. "Research science" must be the reason for the discovery and not a "dream", which anyone can do. If a "dream" can lead to discoveries an awful lot of people would be out of work, and moreover they wouldn't be able to walk about with their chest puffed out because they are so special. In fact what I have seen in my own software engineering is that from time to time a particular person in a team will "come up with something" and this ultimately leads to the success of the project or survival of the company. But it's not talked about much. The image must continue, the image of the "research scientist" and that whol hierarchy and structure around it. Now when Wikipedia and other "offical sources" are written, they are fully corrupt and ignorant of the true cause of things, of who actually discovered things and how, in order to protect the salaries and inflated image of .... a group of ordinary people who happen to be attached to this "industry". Anyway, it's all bullshit. And mostly stinking bullshit. It is difficult to really to what is going on. I imagine some of this "research science" might be worth something, but which parts I do not know. Frankly man's "world", the official world, is just a total lie, but somewhere inside are a few people who from time to time are doing useful and real things. Perhaps we should change the name of the planet to Planet BS. Anyway .... there is truth but not very easy to find. And I suppose people often want to bring down the hierarchy but ... that doesn't work either. What works is to find the truth of things, which is well hidden. In fact a large part of our special spends its time burying the truth and rearranging the hedges so nobody would know.

So @Shadow_self since you know about magic, what can you tell us about seals, candles, qaballah and how it relates to qigong and tummo? Interesting. There is mention of the ability to control future incarnations in Bardo Thodol and the yogas of dream and sleep. Ideally death should lead to enlightenment but if that fails the option to control the next incarnation so as to continue pursuing enlightenment is there. What are the dangers that you are aware of? It sounds intriguing as you pointed out because you can keep magical skills through incarnations.

You really don't know what you are talking about. One of the exercises in tsa lung is 9 purification breaths which have visualisation. No you don't... Eh no this isn't true. He mentions doing some regular exercise like isometrics but that isn't important. Actually you need to read the books for a change because the second exercise in the book i mention is visualising an orange.... And this is based on what? Your own non-existent experiences with those methods? Western magic has inner alchemy too and there is a long tradition going back at least a thousand years. Sure, i will listen to a random idiot on the web instead of respected teachers of Tibetan lineages who have visualisation in many practices like Dream yoga for example. I mean what could go wrong with trusting the opinion of random idiots who don't walk the talk? Whatever doesn't fit your paradigm doesn't mean that it is inferior or doesn't work. This will bite you back later on your journey. Keep to your system and don't criticize systems that you have no idea how they work. Magic has very little connections to qigong. They are separate systems. edit. in case i am misunderstood the idiot is Ian Baker who criticizes ancient traditions based on superficial understanding.