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Was away for few days ...really interesting Taomeow . Ah , OK . My dreamself doesnt think either , but acts . Infact if thinking starts I wake up , which can be really annoying sometimes . Only in begging of falling asleep there may be a thought of some sort , but this would not be classed as dream but falling asleep period (by me) . It is hard to describe , but if there is thought coming up when deep in dream , even a very subtle one -- I already know that I will wake up . At this point I start using abiltiy to speak with sound in the dream , and everything starts dissolving -- fading away . Last time (and not the only one ) I was having an important converstaion with one teacher whom I do not know , but still remeber his physical and mental picture and place he told me to remeber. He was telling something important but thought came and I knew that I will become more dense and not be able to hear rest unless he hurries up . So I started to appologise and tell him that I will disspear soon and that my voice is going to and urged him to hurry up with what he has to tell. Dream me thought awake me a lot , infact it is through dreams and its connection with waking state that most understanding come . Goes both ways . Yes in comparison everyday "civilised" life can be pretty dry , to refresh the connection with more magical way of being is a true art .

One of the (very) few joys of living in Los Angeles is the LA Library Bookstore, a tiny room in each location reserved for selling books, fifty cents for paperbacks, a dollar for hardbacks. For avid readers it is a goldmine. I have basically gone completely apeshit in the construction of a personal library of a thousand titles. I even found a book entitled “A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books.” I’m in good company. The gentle madness is shared by millions. I started buying titles about five years ago when I dropped my four-year-old daughter off at the local pre-school summer camp, just down the street from our library. I’ve probably contributed about 300 titles to my bookshelves over the last five years and what I now possess is a collection that would yield the equivalent of a complete liberal arts education. It started out as a personal exercise in filling gaps in my undergrad education, titles I could read as an elderly man in a rocking chair, but it soon developed into something for my child; a complete reference library that would suit the entirety of her educational needs without ever having to leave the house, or a hard-copy library that could outlive the Los Angeles Unified School District or western civilization itself. (How to airlift the collection to my off-the-grid Taoist eco-village in the Canadian Rockies is another subject.) Having spent endless hours organizing the titles I’ve settled on a chronological system; astronomy first, followed by physics, mathematics, and chemistry and then moving along to earth sciences of geology and global climate change. Biology is up next, followed by the rest of the life sciences, ecology, zoology and the emergence of humankind. Social and behavioral sciences follow, all the history, all the psych and sociology, along with the humanities – art, music, literature (150 of the world’s most popular novels) – and then an explosion of titles of my favorite subjects; Asian Studies, Buddhism and Taoism, humanistic geography, California geography, evolutionary psychology, evolution, fascism and religious fundamentalism. Two shelves are dedicated to non-fiction, current events, and any other titles that defy my ability to classify. Hiding in my bedroom are two bookcases full of literature and self-help, six versions of the Tao te Ching and twelve versions of The Art of War, and all the fucking material I’ve decided I need in order to become a world-class screenwriter. But some days, I’d rather just be a hermit in the mountains. Oh, and let’s not forget a half dozen titles on how not to be a shitty father and husband and why consumer capitalism and addiction are one and the same. And let’s not forget Ken Wilber and consciousness studies and… yeah… at one book a week, twenty years of reading. I’ll be in my 80s soon enough. What I’ve discovered from my formal and informal education, what seems a common thread that weaves in and out of multiple subjects is the general trajectory toward enlightenment. Whether it’s mastering your diet or learning how to defend yourself, designing an eco-village or creating democratic land use policy, becoming an accomplished pianist or a better parent and husband, saving your soul or saving the planet, waking the fuck up seems to be implicit and necessary. You won’t have a black belt and maintain 10% bodyfat without enormous control over your emotions, your instincts, your capacity to manage time and energy. Your ideal eco-village won’t work unless your fellow villagers mandate emotional growth and maturity. And it certainly seems necessary that in order for human life to remain viable we have to become masters of our imaginations and servants of the web of life. We have to figure out a plausible trajectory from being traumatized to becoming enlightened, and we need to get busy. A global awakening seems like the missing ingredient but other writers have already written this off as just another pipe dream, the wishful thinking of a desperate species. I am not entirely convinced that a plausible, ecologically sustainable, and spiritually satisfying lifestyle has been conceived and presented to the unwashed masses. I believe a compelling vision of the genuine pursuit of happiness can replace our morally nauseating pursuit of pleasure. A robust alternative to wage slavery, hamburgers, and porn is waiting in the wings. We just have to live the experiment, take copious notes, make adjustments and be courageous enough to share it despite the risk of ridicule and rejection. What will you do this day that is sustainable and wise? What actions will you jettison from your behavior? I’ve heard it said that practicing enlightenment is being enlightened. Sitting on your zafu, bombarded with thoughts, is still enlightened conduct, yes? Okay – I’ve written my 750 words for the day. Taobums has always been a great vehicle for aspiring writers to pursue their daily word count. As they say, from quantity comes quality. Thanks Taobums!

Just curious what you folks' opinion is about the ability for dreams to affect the physical body. Last night I had a dream that I was with some friends just hanging out and outside on a nice day, and we were doing handstands on the grass. In my dream I kept doing handstands for what seemed like an hour, having a good time and goofing around. When I woke up, I had a pretty bad stomach ache, which was weird because I didn't eat right before bed and felt fine before bed. I stayed awake for 20 minutes and I started feeling better. I'm sure we've all also had the kind of dream that's just a perfect scene, and it causes you to wake up in a great mood. And of course there's the erotic dreams which can lead to orgasm during the dream, but actually having a stomach ache after dreaming about handstands was really wild to me, and has never happened to me before. Anybody have any similar experiences?

The full moon energy right now makes the meditation 10 times stronger -- 3 nights before and after the full moon is the strongest energy for meditation. The internal shaking is the conversion of the jing or kundalini to the chi and then the dream itself is the shen energy. The jing energy as spirit travel is the etheric body -- not the astral body. The I-awareness while dreaming is the lucid dream but for it to be astral you need to dream of being outside your body. So you dream about your own body as if it is someone else and then you realize that who you are is not someone inside your own body. This is when I wake up back into my own body -- because for the spirit to make that double awareness of not being the mind or the body is itself a type of gateway which will shock the spirit back into the body/mind. There's also something called "transcendent dreaming" which is beyond astral dreaming. It means that the pure consciousness itself merges your I-awareness of your spirit within another physical reality -- so that your own I-awareness experiences what the other physical awareness experiences. This is detailed by Dr. Christine Donnell -- http://www.amazon.com/Transcendent-Dreaming-Stepping-Human-Potential/dp/098018102X That means the dreams have spacetime transformations -- so they are precognitive but also when you wake up there is a physical transformation internally because of the merger during the dream. The spiritual dream is more alive -- the senses are more vivid -- than being awake normally.

@Moderator team should this Buddhist Deity thread should really be in the Buddhist sub-forum? But yes, there are literally thousands of texts which extol the benefits of chanting Hindu Deity names. Here are a few -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalita_Sahasranama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali-Saṇṭāraṇa_Upaniṣad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu_Sahasranāma#Merits_of_recitation I've experienced very profound effects of chanting a sacred Vishnu mantra given to me by a Yogi in a dream 18 years back -- both spiritually as well as in my everyday life.

... I was thinkin' the other day about the name of the place the silver spaceman apparition appeared. Sol Way. Silly, I know. I had another "dream" when I was still very young but a little older. I went down through some strange tunnel/elevator deep below the earth. In my childhood innocence I later described it as "so deep it was down below hell!" There I met a Great Lord with a Golden Winged Helmet looking quite like the one worn by the golden age Flash. Or a bit like the one worn by that oh gosh that wrathful dharma protector yeah. This King or Lord or Chieftain or so I perceived him told me much. I remembered none of what he told me. It was like and yet unlike a dream. Later in my early teens I could lucid dream. I could create reality in the dream, and wake at will. I had this ability for about a year or so. I'm givin' a lot away today! ...

You use relics to make Amitra. THE PROTECTORS By His Eminence Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche The first protector I will speak about is Shenpa. Shenpa is very important for His Holiness’ swift rebirth, because he is the main protector of the Nyingma lineage. Shenpa is the main guardian for all of our practices: Troma, Phurba, etc. He is one of the divine protectors that Guru Rinpoche entrusted the terma teachings with, and basically he controls most of the terma teachings. An interesting thing about Shenpa is that my father met him several times. I’ll tell you about one incident. Normally, Shenpa was in very close contact with my father all the time, and really served him. It was very difficult for us to even see Shenpa’s face, because he was very wrathful, and he doesn’t show his face as easily as other dharmapalas do. Shenpa is very conservative. Also, it isn’t easy to call on Shenpa to do things, but he could manifest to Rinpoche in person. Shenpa was the one who brought my mother and father together. Shenpa had gone to my mother’s father in person. My maternal grandfather was a military commander named Shig Go Tey. He was governor of the province called Shig Go Tey, which is very large. My grandfather was also the 13th Dalai Lama’s personal cabinet advisor. He was an aristocrat, but at the same time he was also a minor terton, connected with Guru Rinpoche’s teachings. He would always carry a phurba in his chuba. At one time my grandfather was looking for a particular text in the area of Lhasa when Shenpa appeared to him in person. He told him that the text could be found with Dudjom Rinpoche, who was in Lhasa at the time. My maternal grandfather had never heard of Dudjom Rinpoche. Shenpa told him where Dudjom Rinpoche was staying and said, “Send your daughter to request the text.” Before he left, he told him, “I have a present for you.” He gave him a bow and arrow, then walked away from the room and disappeared. My grandfather was so caught up with talking to Shenpa that he forgot that he was in his inner chamber, which was inaccessible to anyone. The chambers are constructed in such a way that the inner chamber is private, and there is an outer chamber where servants guard the inner chamber so that no one enters. Immediately after Shenpa left he realized that there was no way for this person to enter, and he thought, “How did this person get into my inner chamber?” He rushed out to where his servants were guarding him and asked them where was the man who had just given him the bow and arrow. The servants said there was no such person, that they had been there the whole time and hadn’t let anyone in. That night my grandfather had a very positive indication that he would meet Dudjom Rinpoche and receive teachings from him. That same night, Shenpa went to Dudjom Rinpoche and told him, “I am going to get the consort for you, so tomorrow morning, let whoever comes in to see you. Set up an auspicious offering on the table, and tomorrow a person will come who will be your future wife.” Most of Dudjom Rinpoche’s servants at that time were monks, so the next day Rinpoche told them, “If anyone comes today, no matter who they are, I want to see them. A woman will come to see me so don’t stop her from seeing me.” Later that day Rinpoche met my mother. After that, Dudjom Rinpoche went to my mother’s house and asked my grandfather for her. It was at that time that my grandfather showed Rinpoche the gift that Shenpa had given him, because he felt that the person who had given it to him was a protector. Rinpoche recognized that the bow and arrow was the same bow and arrow that he had placed in his monastery for the protectors. Shenpa had taken the bow and arrow all the way to Lhasa to give to my grandfather. My grandfather then became Rinpoche’s disciple. Shenpa is a wisdom being with very high realization. My name, “Shenpen,” means “benefactor of others,” but “Shenpa” means “the hunter” –he hunts for human life. The reason we pray to Shenpa is because he was in such close contact with Rinpoche. Shenpa gives tremendous blessing and protection to students who are in retreat, and for all practitioners of the Tersar lineage. Shenpa vowed that he would continue to benefit people until the next Buddha comes so that the Tersar lineage, its protectors and blessings wouldn’t be lost. So this is a direct prediction and prophecy of Shenpa. Shenpa came to my father many times like this to help him. Once, when Rinpoche was traveling from one part of Tibet to another –a dangerous thing to do since there are bandits everywhere — he wasn’t able to get where he wanted to by nightfall. My father, mother, and three or four servants, that’s all the people who were in the group, got stuck on a hill. Suddenly they looked up on the hill and saw 30 or 40 bandits. My mother was very worried. There were no other travelers in sight, and she thought they would all be robbed and killed by those bandits. Bandits do that kind of thing. They were completely desperate. The bandits were howling and making all kinds of noises and coming down the mountain when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, another band of 30 to 40 riders appeared and started riding up from the ravine below, carrying guns and bows and arrows. The bandits coming down from above were frightened and retreated because they were outnumbered. The group of riders from below then came up to Rinpoche, and the leader got off his horse asking him, “Oh ho, where are you traveling?” Rinpoche answered, “I am traveling to Lhasa. Where are you going?” He replied, “The next village.” Rinpoche thanked him for coming at just the right moment. The leader asked him, “Who are you?” Rinpoche replied, “Oh, I’m a padma guru, I’ve been recognized as Pedma Guru. My name is Dudjom Rinpoche.” Then the leader said, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Aren’t you the terton Gillay Terton’s reincarnation?” Rinpoche said, “Yes, I have been recognized as such.” So immediately the leader made prostrations to Rinpoche. Rinpoche asked him, “Do I know you?” The leader replied, “Yes, you know me, but it isn’t important for you to remember me at this moment, but I know you.” That person was Shenpa. Later that night, at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, Rinpoche had a dream. Shenpa appeared to him and said, ” I came to serve you. Forgive me if I fooled you. That was not my intention. You were traveling in a dangerous place, so I came to serve you. You have commanded me many times to come in times of need.” The next morning, when Rinpoche got up, he made a very elaborate offering to the dharmapalas to thank them for making the bandits go away. Now he was able to complete his journey safely. The chieftain, or Shenpa, had looked familiar to Rinpoche. He felt he had seen him before, but he couldn’t figure out where. He was completely disguised as a bandit, but when Rinpoche looked at his feet, he saw he was barefoot. People don’t ride barefoot, so it occurred to Rinpoche later on that that was a subtle sign of the protector. Shenpa serves Rinpoche’s disciples too. One time there was a disciple who went into retreat in Kongbo during the winter, and this disciple was completely cut off by snow and dying of starvation. Right in front of his retreat house someone dragged the body of a dead deer. The disciple was meditating inside when a voice said to him, “I’ve brought you food down there. Eat it.” When he went outside and looked, he saw the dead deer and brought it inside, and he was able to do another three months of retreat. Later on, Shenpa told Rinpoche, “One of your students was dying, so I took him deer meat.” The activity of the dharmapalas is incredible. Dharmapalas are wisdom beings that can help you attain realization. Needless to say, there are other protectors, like Trod Gyel Harmo, Tseringma, and other protectors and protectresses that protect the lineage, but Shenpa is the main protector of the Dudjom Tersar lineage. When Dudjom Lingpa discovered a certain terma, Shenpa was there to help him, taking the terma from the rock. Shenpa is committed to the Dudjom lineage and to whoever practices in the lineage. If a practitioner calls on him, he will be there to answer. This doesn’t mean he will answer all the small detailed things, but if there is crucial need, he will be there. So Shenpa practice is important. Then, along with this practice, you can add one more practice. It starts with: Kung Jo! Kung Tu Zang Mo Ying Gee Yum. This is the prayer for Mamo Ekadzati, Dorje Legpa and Ralchigma. Sometimes, if you do the Dam Cheen Chi Tor, then you can just recite the Ma Za Dor Sum. That would be great. If you make the dharmapala offerings, and do dharmapala practice like Ma Za Dor Sum or Shenpa practice, it is important to keep count of your repetitions. You can’t just say it two or three times and just leave it. Unfortunately, we have never done an intensive dharmapala practice together. When I practice, if I have time, sometimes I will recite one mala, but not less than 21 times. It’s very important to invoke them. What dharmapalas really are is our confidence. They support our confidence to be able to reach out and help others. In fact, if we lack confidence, dharmapalas have a way of subtly communicating with us to bring our confidence back. Confidence is the right way of respecting the teachings, the right way of benefiting people. That is the confidence it will bring up in us. In fact, dharmapala is the subtle communication of the Buddha in the sambhogakaya realm in which we have developed the fine perception of seeing them, so if you see the form of the dharmapala, you have also seen the form of the Buddha in the dharmakaya realm. Dharmapalas are the subtle communications between these two levels. Dharmapalas will manifest in an ordinary way because our understanding is ordinary, but when we purify our perception, they manifest in an extraordinary way. It depends on our perception. Dharmapalas are the real communication of a subtle body, and through them we can experience our subtle body in a way that we have never experienced before. Through the dharmapala, we can experience the subtle body immediately in our everyday situations. So these two practices, Shenpa and Ma Za Dor Sum, are important. The third dharmapala is optional, and it is that of my protectress, Kong Jhyo. When I was young she saved me many times from death. I was very naughty when I was young, and I gave my parents a lot of problems. My protectress, Kongsen Denma, came to me several times and saved me. I’ve seen her several times from childhood to adulthood, and whenever I have a problem, she always comes up. Rinpoche, my father, would always say: “Don’t forget to appease her, and don’t forget to always make offerings to her.” But in spite of that, I’ve always been more involved with protectors like Shenpa. Somehow, I never include her in my practice. It’s just recently that things have been pointing out that she is the real one I should be concerned with, so I have been taking more interest in doing her practice. She is my birth goddess. I was born in Kongbo, and she became my protectress. So this practice is optional. If you do do that practice, she will create more favorable circumstances for me to be able to come and help you all more fully. Also, she will create a situation where you will find time to practice as well. You have this practice, it starts with Kay Sha Shu Pa Ja Jung Pa Zon Zhu Sho Shu Kay Su Yidam ___ Tum Mo Che. I will give you all the oral transmissions straight away, so you’ll have that. Normally, when you are doing a tsog puja or a dharmapala practice as a group, it is good to do this practice of Kongsen Denma. It’s not something you have to do every day. It is good to do it collectively as a group. As I said, in my own experience, she has really come and helped me many times. Normally, as far as your daily practice goes, if you have a dharmapala initiation it is good to do the practice. Why? Because it opens your confidence. Also, your confidence is opened when you are able to relate to the sambhogakaya wisdom body of these deities. These dharmapalas are the protectors of the dharmakaya buddhas that are in the active field – not in the depth of meditation. Protectors are willing to show their divine form to you, and will show it to you in a way that you can relate to, but they remain behind because we are not subtle enough, and we don’t realize it, and we don’t evoke them enough. But somehow, when the time of need arises, these protectors and protectresses will come and help. In the Nyingma lineage, and in the whole buddhadharma, one of the most complex things to explain is the dharmapalas. The reason for this is because we must be spoken to on our individual levels of realization; otherwise, it becomes a gross fabrication of a very, very subtle complex. The explanation can also be very difficult and terrifying, because the dharmapalas arise from the vapors of our blood. There are so many levels of protectors: there are local palas, dharmapalas, wisdom protectors, there is a whole heirarchy of protectors. It is like a comprehensive government of dharmapalas. If you understand the dharmapala practice, you understand the working mind of the Buddhas. The dharmapalas are the main working force of all the Buddhas, because they communicate the process of our mind. If there is an enemy, what is the enemy? How should we view the enemy? If there is something harming us, how do we defeat it? It is important to do the dharmapala practice at the beginning and end of each empowerment or wang, and if you are doing a retreat, you must also begin and end with a dharmapala practice. There is no time that you can ever exclude these wisdom beings. The dharmapala initiation is called “Tsogmay Tsogthig” which means “empowerment giving you the life force of the protectors.” Once you have received the initiation, you must do the practice every day or they will harm you. It’s a commitment, a very serious contract. This empowerment will explain exactly what the protectors are, and how they dwell in our system and energize you. A general dharmapala practice you can do as a group, even if you haven’t had the initiation, is the Tsomig Tsogthig. It’s a special transmission which I don’t think is being given, unless you are a tulku or really committed to spending the rest of your life in practice. It is a very difficult and risky transmission to give, and it has a very heavy samaya. So those are the three dharmapala practices I recommend: Shenpa, the three deities, and Kongsen Denma. After that, if there are other protectors you wish to include, then include them, but these three are the root protectors in your practice. The “Dam Chen Chi Tor” practice contains the entire magnitude of the protectors, and is a complete protector prayer for all lineages. The Dam Chen Chi Tor is so complete that once you have finished it, you have fulfilled the samaya to all the lineages. All protectors for all practices come from there. Once you have done this, you can go to the other protector prayers to pay special respect to individual protectors. Whenever you pour a liquid as an offering to a protector, you must wear a scarf over your mouth so you don’t breathe into the protectors. The thing about the dharmapalas is that they are very disciplined wisdom Buddhas. They won’t accept any of your faults at all. They will discipline you. If, for example, you breathe into what you are pouring, they will slap you back, and in the same way, if your practice is done correctly and well, you will have a positive reaction back, straight away. It is good to offer red wine to the dharmapalas, but the best offering is whiskey. Whiskey is expensive, but when you make an offering to the dharmapalas, and to the wisdom Buddhas, you don’t want to be cheap, you should want to offer something good. If you cannot afford whiskey, drop down to wine, and if you cannot afford wine, then offer tea. If you cannot afford tea, what can I say? Along with the liquid that you offer in the dharmapala cup, you should also offer beef heart. The dharmapala offering is a symbol of activating the heart core. The chanting and beating of the drum that we do in the dharmapala practice vibrates the Buddha’s heart. From that heart vibration, our heart vibrates. So they vibrate together, which produces the energy that produces the different phenomena. Within the beef heart, all essences are together. If you can’ t afford heart , offer a small piece of meat. If you can’t afford heart or meat, then offer a biscuit, or a little rice. Basically, the offering should be whiskey, heart, the five kinds of meat, and at last one grain of rice. If you are doing a long practice, cut many pieces of meat, and continue to add heart and whiskey as if to say, “Please have, please have.” Now it is not just whiskey and meat, but it is nectar we are offering. This offering is a symbol of our heart being opened to the dharmapala and saying, “Have this.” If you have an enemy, the offering symbolizes their heart, as if you were saying, “Please subjugate my enemy.” When you say “subjugate” you don’t mean kill. Subjugate means you want them to see the wisdom of not harming you. It is a means to bring wisdom to that person. Many times, if someone seeks to harm you, and you are doing dharmapala ractice, that person will suddenly change their mind and decide not to hurt you. Why? Because the dharmapala changes their mind about the benefits of harming you. Normally, when we make our offering, the power of the five meats and the five nectars increases the offering in an infinite way, like space, but since we don’t have the meditative power to increase it the way it should be increased, if we add a little dudtsi or amrita inside the bottle of whiskey, because the dudtsi has been blessed by the power of meditation, the whiskey will have the strength of meditation. The amrita has the power to make your dharmapala practice successful. You must have either the power of the practice of relying on your yidam, your meditation, or the substance. The dudtsi contains all three powers, and alone can fulfill all three requirements. It is really powerful. I do that, by the way. You can feel the difference when you add dudtsi to the whiskey. The vibration in the room changes straight away. The protectors come. In the Nyingma lineage, the key to making dudtsi is knowing how to prepare the nectars. Dudtsi contains five gems, five meats, five nectars, and the relics of all the Buddhas and tertons. It also contains the combination of all the earth that Rinpoche has collected from different areas. When we make dudtsi, we combine relic upon relic, and concentrate it with the 21-day practice of day and night. The practice goes on for 21 days and nights, without interruption. It is an awesome, overwhelming process. The mantra must continue 24 hours a day. Herbs are mixed with the dudtsi, and all of these ingredients, these king medicines, are mixed together. Then the mixture is sealed all around. Bell and dorje are placed in different quarters to symbolize the blessing. The medicine that is prepared must be kept in a mandala, so a whole mandala must be prepared. It must be constantly attended to, with offering lamps and light. And with the practice of Dorje Sempa, Vajrsattva, Phurba, or Avalokitesvara, the lama empowers the medicine with his mind, again and again. It is an extremely complex process to prepare dudtsi. Throughout the practice tsog is offered. When His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche prepared it, in the end, as a symbolic thing, people would see rainbows coming out of the dudtsi. Rainbows would cross each other in the air in the room where he worked, and other things like that. Even with an ordinary lama, due to the strength of the blessings, the skull cup will boil over and radiate light on the ceiling. There are always miraculous signs when dudtsi is being prepared. Always. If you are sick, or have samaya contamination or anything like that, if you eat a little dudtsi it will purify your channels. Dudtsi is really to purify channels. If you add a little to the whiskey, it will make up for whatever you lack in reliance on yidam, meditation, or the power of the substance. When you practice alone, place the protector offering on your table, not the altar, so you can keep feeding it . Make the offering very carefully, and place a bumpa or water bowl here with a little saffron in it, and keep purifying the protector offering with the water as well. Also, you can turn the incense around the offering. You must be very diligent, very conscientious of what you are doing. It is very bad if any dirt gets into the offering. The offering receptacle must be washed thoroughly, and make sure your hands are washed too. If you sit down and touch the floor after washing your hands, you might think your hands are washed, but they aren’t. Be careful. The best way of disposing of a protector offering is in the river or ocean. It is also good to keep it in a high place where birds can eat it, like on a post, or in a tree, or put it on clean ground, blocked by a fence or stone, away from where you walk. If you are in retreat, you can collect it in a plastic garbage bag. Don’t give the remains to domesticated dogs, cats, or other animals that comprise your extended family. If they are other people’s animals, and strays, it’s not great but it is okay. It is okay for wild animals to consume the offerings. It is good to make the offering every day, especially toward the evening. Q. I don’t believe in the dharmapalas. Everything else about dharma makes sense, but dharmapalas don’t make sense to me. A. Everybody has a problem with the dharmapalas. They ask, “Who are they? I don’t believe in them.” And, my dear, I must say two things to you: First, just because you don’t visually see or understand something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Remember this one. Second, what you don’t see is your limitation, not an expansion of your awareness. The reason it is so hard to relate to the teaching of the dharmapalas is because this teaching is so very, very sophisticated. When you go through all the elaboration of the practice, through all the blood, guts, pus and everything spilling out, and you look at the various vapors that rise up, then you begin to understand. Understanding the dharmapala is really understanding how your blood and your heart beat relate to your practice. We say your heart is the drum of the dharmapala. The pumping of the blood is the offering to the protectors, and the beating of the heart is their drum. You must be brought up in the context of being with them, or having seen them or the local protectors. If you can’t see the local protectors, how can you hope to see the dharmapalas? If you can’t see your ancestors who have died on this land, how can you hope to see a local protector, let alone a dharmapala? The level of energy is very high, very subtle. Once your energy is very subtle, then you want to name the subtleness of the protectors. This is what you want to come to. For example, once, in His Holiness’ temple, a man named Pedma Longdu used to beat the dharmapala drum every evening and make offerings. He had made a commitment to His Holiness to perform this offering ritual, and it was his routine. One night he got drunk and didn’t make the offering. He went to sleep. In the middle of the night my mother woke up, maybe around 2:00 a.m., when the dharmapala drum began beating on its own. She woke up my father and asked him, “Did you ask for a special extension of the practice? What is going on?” Rinpoche just got up and smiled, and said, “It doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter.” The drum beat the whole night, and all the people surrounding the temple could not sleep. The dharmapala had become very violent, hitting the drum, because the offering had not been put there. The next morning Rinpoche called Pema Longdu, who is now the head lama of the Buddha Monastery in Kaleekoh, and asked him, “Why didn’t you do the dharmapala practice last night?” The lama became arrogant and said, “If I miss one day’s practice, are they going to get so hungry?” The next day Pema Longdu was hit by a fever, becoming violently ill and almost losing his life. This was because he talked about the protectors as if they were hungry for an offering, and were so attached to that offering that they couldn’t go even one day without it. Right after he said that his blood started warming up. He couldn’t sleep all night, and his heart kept on beating, beating, beating. The next morning, he started vomiting blood. So Rinpoche told him to go straight away into the temple and make prostrations to the protectors, or they would take his life. The protectors can take your life force. It really is in their hands. Why? The life force we are talking about in the Chi Med Tsog Thig is the protector. There is nothing other than that. It wasn’t that the dharmapalas missed the offering. They just showed him that he had lost his discipline in the training of his mind. That is why the dharmapala showed its hand. It can be a very costly affair. Let me tell you another story about the dharmapalas. The reason my father, Dudjom Rinpoche, was never angry towards any particular person is because once he had a bad experience, and he vowed never to get angry again. I’ll explain what happened, but we should not talk about it to anyone. When Rinpoche was young, he had some financial difficulties, as all of us do have at one time or another. Rinpoche was sponsoring many things, and his finances weren’t so good. So he borrowed quite a large sum from these three brothers, because Rinpoche was always borrowing money. He was going to pay it back, but in Tibet it is horrible to borrow money because the interest is so high. You cannot believe it. After one or two years, if you can’t repay a loan, your interest is four or five times the amount you borrowed. Rinpoche couldn’t pay the loan back the first year. He had started building a monastery and just couldn’t pay it. So in the second or third year one of the brothers became very angry. Rinpoche said, “Please wait. I think my situation will soon be a little bit better.” Rinpoche was already making payments, but he had borrowed quite a large amount of money. One day Rinpoche was teaching, and in those days lamas would teach very casually, sitting in front of the house in the garden letting people come and go as they wanted, when all of a sudden this brother turns up and says, “Give me the money right now.” Rinpoche said, “I don’t have it.” So the brother said, “Then what you need is a whack,” and he grabbed Rinpoche by the throat and dragged him out. Now all of his disciples were warriors, because as you know Tibetans are fighters, so his disciples were dragging their swords out, and Rinpoche was screaming, “Don’t touch him, don’t touch him.” Everyone there had a knife and gun and were prepared to kill this brother straight away, but Rinpoche stopped them. So the angry brother kicked him two or three times, and Rinpcohe felt really bad, but he said, “He’s right. It is his money that I haven’t been able to give him. It is true.” Early one morning, before the dawn light, Rinpoche was doing his practice around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. In the middle of his practice, someone came in and put something on the table in front of him, and made a big noise in the dark. So Rinpoche goes looking for a torch — batteries were brought from Lhasa, and from there they came from China, so who could afford them? — finds it, and lighting it he finds a fresh head cut off, with the brains intact. He immediately realizes that it is the head of the brother who grabbed him by the neck. The protector could not bear to see him humiliated, so he lopped that person’s head off and brought it to Rinpoche. From that time on Rinpoche swore never to feel any emotion, or show any emotion. He had been thinking, “Why did that man treat me so badly?” He deserved it, but not in this way. Two days later, another brother went completely crazy and stabbed himself. Soon afterward, the third brother was riding his horse and fell. Once a protector gets angry, he won’t stop until he cuts the entire family line. You might ask, “What logic is there in hurting family members?”, but I’m trying to tell you it goes beyond logic. So immediately, Rinpoche had to stop this, because it was spreading to the other family members. So he told the parents and relatives to come to the monastery and do prostrations in the temple and ask for forgiveness. Rinpoche accepted their petitions for forgiveness, then it was cut. It didn’t get the father and mother, but next it would have been the uncles. The wisdom mind of the dharmapalas is such that when people are cut, they are also liberated. Don’t forget this. It is not that they are suffering. The dharmapalas have the right to take the life force away. The life force we are talking about is a vitality which is in the grasp of the dharmapalas. The truth is contained in this awareness. It is very difficult to understand at this moment, but the more you do dharmapala practice, the more you will be able to see many things you did not see before. Rinpoche felt very bad that he showed a little emotion, because he felt that it was that emotion which transformed into the activity of the dharmapalas. It doesn’t make sense to say the dharmapalas felt anger, because they are the wisdom deities, and are beyond anger. But when you violate a holy body, the dharmapala is sworn to protect that, so they will come into action. Regarding the lamas who are being killed in Tibet, as I said, the dharmapalas are sworn to protect the body of divine truth –not outside, but inside. Physically speaking, these lamas still have to go through the same experiences of birth, old age, sickness and death, just like anyone else. They have chosen to go through these challenges, which is why they are called bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means accepting the challenge to come back into samsara and go through the same poisons and training, again and again. But innerly they will perceive their sickness differently. They will stay in the dharmakaya perception, and when they die, they will dissolve into light. It is only because our perception is impure that we see them suffering in an outer way. That is the difference. Now that you have been given the explanation of the dharmapalas, if you don’t have respect for that explanation, then you are in serious trouble. Then you won’t practice as you should. If you haven’t had enough explanation, and you do the practice a little wrong, that is a little okay, but once you’ve had the explanation, and you do it any other way, then you break your commitment. What is more, there is the difficult matter of all the levels of the protectors, arising from intangibility, from that which is unseen. It is very complex. I’ve seen thousands of examples of what the protectors can do. When you do their practices, you will find your confidence. As you move toward realization, the thing you will lack is the protectors. That is when the protectors arise. What we have not understood so far is the strength of the blood, the strength of the heart, and the strength of the flesh. This means we haven’t really understood the dharmapalas at all. If you practice consistently, then the dharmapalas have to reveal themselves to you. Their qualities will reveal in the depth of you — in the breath, in the blood vapor, in the nerve vapor — and you will be able to see them for the first time. Then you will begin to understand what is called “the unhindered action of the Buddhas.” Right now, the closest you will come to seeing the perfect enlightened mind of the Buddhas is from the point of view of the protectors. It is very complex. You need to do a one month retreat of the dharmapala before you can realize, through the beat of the drum, just whose heart it is that is beating. The drum beat is not your heartbeat, it is the heartbeat of the dharmapalas. And when you begin to understand that, fear begins to rise, because without beating the drum, the drum is still beating. Then more fear will arise. That is how you go about looking for the protectors. If you see the protectors, you might just faint. Sometimes, the life force will just run away. When you pray for protection, you probably think you are praying to be protected from something, but though it is isn’t written, what you are really praying for is the protection of the dharmapalas. The dharmapala is the manifestation of the wisdom activity of the Buddhas. Suppose you are doing practice and someone wants to kill you, but you are saved. Who saved you? It was the dharmapalas. The bridge between the intellect and the wisdom mind is the dharmapalas. The dharmapalas are implicit in all dharma practices. Only through the dharmapalas do you explicitly bring up the full range and magnitude of the activity of the Buddhas. You practice with wishful thought, but when you do dharmapala practice, that wishful thought translates into action. Every time something happens to you that brings a change or realization in your life, or gives you strength to live again, that is the activity of the dharmapalas. It is not just happening by accident; it is the movement of the dharmapala. The heartbeat is the heartbeat of the dharmapala. For example, sometimes they manifest as a person, blocking you from going a certain way, and later on you see that someone going that way was hit by a car, or they go into another person’s mind and block you so you will be safe, or physically manifest so that you are saved. These are all common activities of the dharmapala. They push you from this to that until you make the auspicious connection. It just depends on how you understand it. Non-physical things which happen to you, which are good for you, are also the dharmapala. If you think the person or situation that was good for you, and continue to practice, someday the dharmapala will come and say, “Yes, I did that for you. I gave you that situation a long time ago.” That is the way it is. The dharmapalas can be violent, but they can be peaceful too. They can be a butterfly, they can be warmth, they can be anything. They don’t have to be just one particular form. The activity aspect is dharmapala. To tell the truth, even for myself:, the complexity of the dharmapalas is such that sometimes I say to myself, “What am I doing?” When you practice, you will understand, but when you don’t, then it is difficult. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve seen them or not, if you continue to do your protector practices, different situations will arise from that. Somehow, what I always see is the wrathful. When I was small I couldn’t sleep. When I grew up I was constantly seeing the movement of the dharmapala. I remember my father saying, “Ah, these are things practitioners wish to see but can’t. These are your protectors.” At that time I couldn’t understand what these protectors were, though in my depth I could. They had three eyes, six eyes, and I couldn’t relate to them. And the words they spoke weren’t words a small kid could understand like, “I love you.” Instead they would say, “Give me your heart. I want to eat you,” or something like that. Those were their exact words, and I was only five or six years old. I couldn’t sleep. I would see their translucent bodies, and they would come and grab me. In the daytime, I couldn’t play either. My eldest sister would never play with me because I would see these things, and when I would point them out to her, she would see the same things. And my servants, the young men who were looking after me, none of them would take responsibility for me at night. That is how bad it was. In the daytime, I would be playing a game like hide and seek, and sometimes I would be running and all of a sudden I would fall into a gigantic lap. When I would look up I would see this horrible face, and then I’d faint. Most of my childhood was spent in either a fainting or unconscious state. I’ve always been like that. I had a difficult life as a kid. My mother and father would sleep together and put me in the middle between them, and as soon as they fell asleep, someone would shake me. I’m not joking. The protector would shake me so I would wake up, and then I would see on the ceiling this deity with three heads, tongue rolled up, guts hanging out, one hand holding a knife, saying, “Come, come, I want to just cut your neck.” It helped that Rinpoche told me it was good that I had these protectors, and that they were the wisdom deities. As a child I could relate to something nice, but seeing something like that just scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t understand why they would do that, why they would frighten me. And later in my life, I didn’t understand why they didn’t have the wisdom to know I was just a child. Rinpoche would be doing a tsog, and I would look inside the tsog offering and see a whole host of non-existent people. Sometimes they would bring dead people to Rinpoche for his blessing. I would see that person walk in, sit down and observe. I saw many things that terrified me. My mother would fight with my father, saying, “If this continues a long time, you will have no son left.” It was true. Anything that moved, I was frightened. She wanted him to seal off my mind so I wouldn’t see these visions. Rinpoche had a way of sealing this vision off, totally. My father said no, we must leave it as it is, that it was really beneficial for me. I couldn’t understand how it was beneficial. But later, after a big fight with my mother, he sealed it. Rinpoche called me in to him and said, “It is very unfortunate what I am going to do, but I am going to seal your vision completely.” I was maybe seven or eight years old. There was an altar set up with some nectar on it. He told me to put it on my eyes. So I put it on my eyes and forehead, and he said, “From today on, I’ve sealed this one.” Truly speaking, after that I never saw them again. I could feel them move for another year, but the vision aspect was gone. Now I think it was a great mistake. My mother should have listened to Rinpoche, because he was talking from his wisdom mind. I’m sure I wouldn’t have died, but I was so happy when my mother requested that. Believe me, my servants couldn’t bear to be with me. At night they wouldn’t go out with me, because just like with my sister, if I pointed the dharmapalas out, they would see them too. I would be sitting in a room, and the door curtains would start moving, and something would catch my eye and I would see this gigantic finger saying, “Come, come. ” I wouldn’t want to look at it, so I’d tell my sister, “there, there,” and she would see the same gigantic finger saying, “Come, come,” and then she’d start screaming. It is no wonder I had no one to play with. If it had been a dream, I would have understood it as a dream, but it wasn’t a dream. I really saw it. I couldn’t hide in any corner. The only time I felt secure that nothing was going to come was when I would sit right next to my father or mother when they were doing things. Even then, when I looked around, I would see things, but they wouldn’t frighten me because my mother or father was there. Rinpoche told me that later on my vision would reopen on its own, but I think it was good for my health that he sealed it off; otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened to me. It was a terrible part of my life. So when you ask about the dharmapala, I’ve had the same kinds of questions, like why would they scare the hell out of me? If they had just showed themselves to me once, I would have said, ” I’ve had an experience,” but showing me again and again, daytime, evening, nighttime, whenever I played they were running after me, attacking me. And their words were not sweet or gentle, they were always, “I want to chop you,” or “I want to eat your heart.” The only gentle thing I’ve seen is Kongsen Denma, and she’s important to me. She always appears in the most beautiful form. One day I was playing outside in the field and suddenly this beautiful lady came and said, “I’ll take you to the main garden in Lhasa.” I said, “Yes, I want to go.” So I just held her hand and went. I saw everything in the lingka. I’d never been to the lingka before. I was lost for seven hours. My mother was worried , and she went to my father and he said, “No, no. There is nothing wrong with him. He’ll come back home. It looks alright.” During the seven hours I was lost, my memory was that I went to this lingka and had a nice time. I watched all the fish in the water. Then, all of a sudden, I was back in front of the gate, and a servant came and grabbed me and dragged me in, because all the servants were out looking for me. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t realize I had been gone for seven hours. It had seemed just a few minutes to me. The beautiful lady had said, “Go back. I’ll come and visit you again.” My mother asked me what happened, and where had I been, and who took me, so I told her. The lingka is a 1/2- day’s horse ride from my house. Rinpoche knew nothing was wrong. He could see everything was intact, that I hadn’t been taken by a demon or a spirit. Rinpoche said most probably it must have been one of his protectors. So she was the only elegant lady with all the ornaments saying, “come” with gentle words. The rest I’ve seen were all (he makes a grimace). That’s what I mean when I say dharmapalas.

1) Begin by meditating in the desired position and gradually increase the time until you can sit for several hours comfortably 2) You can train yourself to become lucid in the dream. Once that is mastered, you can transcend dream altogether and sleep the sleep of clear light. There are methods for learning this. Search here for dream and sleep yoga.

I quite appreciate the input on this, as I, myself, am unsure exactly what it was. It was certainly not a "dream", and I don't believe it was "astral projection". Recovering those memories is half of what allowed me to start my journey in this life, as I grew up with an intense hatred and disgust for religion in general, though most of what I had been exposed to up until that point was Christianity and Judaism. I was an extremist, militant atheist. As that was the case, it would have been hard for me to even accept the idea of something that most people could not see, nor would I have been able to accept the idea of cultivation, qi, gods, demons, ghosts, magic, or any of the other phenomena that have become everyday to me. I began studying to figure out what it was, but I still don't have a concrete answer! Would it be taboo for me to ask how you accessed the written bits? I've not had direct access to the records via projection myself, so I'm not entirely familiar with the process, but I've never heard them express it in written language. This kind of thing very much intrigues me. As interest grows, so do the number of parasites of topics. Unfortunately, fanaticism is quite easy to fall into. I do indeed hope to move to Japan and I also hope to teach, so I may use the JET program, but I hope I would at least be a good teacher for the students. Students learn from their teachers, whether the teacher is good or not; this is part of the reason America is having issues currently, as we do not have sufficient incentives for capable teachers, though I digress. I'll need to finish my degree before I can even look at that option, either way. If it is here to give a positive message, it would be wrong to send it away, but if it is here for itself, would it also be wrong to send it away? I've always had trouble comprehending morals. I would think that if someone were to come and cleanup a lot of the haunting hotspots, it would be an overall good thing, but I don't quite know if it's acceptable to exercise power that way.

Been thinking about trying this out. Robert Bruce has supposedly invented the "rope technique", which lets you astral travel relatively easy. Since my kundalini experience I've had some experiences I believe to be astral in nature. They usually all start the same way: Being conscious suddenly in a dream state. Can feel my body lying in the bed, warm. Body is buzzing all over. Especially at chest area. Feels and sounds like a washing machine spinning at great speed. Then it stops, and then something in the dream starts to change. Someitmes an opening in the fabric of the dream will start to show itself. Sometimes I'm just transported to a new place. Sometimes I'm just in my room, but a version of my room with more dull colors. In the beginning four years ago I had some negative experiences, probably because of all of my fear. Seeing negative entities and so on. Since I've become more positive about the whole thing I don't see them anymore. Now it's only positive sights. They can be quite beatiful. Some days ago, probably ten days or s,o I was seeing what seemed to be a sand-colored ancient Assyrian building against a bright blue sky. Maybe it's only lucid dreaming, I don't know for sure. But I do know that I'm conscious. Anyways, my main point is this: What's the benefit in astral travelling? Do you progress spiritually from it? Or is it something you should just do because it's fun?

Oneironaut Thank you for the clarification. I think I have to clear some things up too... I did not mean to come off as disrespectful to Buddhist/Tibetan Buddhist/Taoist belief systems. If I did I apologize, to you and anyone else concerned. Understand that I was a Christian for over 20 years, as I have said many, many times by now. I am sure someone reading this is tired of my saying it. Like I have this huge battle scar and I like t rip my shirt off to show it to everyone who passes by. That is not my intention. I just want you to get that I have had enough of religion to last the rest of this lifetime, OK? I have no objection to spiritual practices and leaving them connected with lucid dreaming if they work best connected to each other. I'll assume you know what you are talking about and they are. I just want to avoid ceremonies, chanting, long hours of sitting on my knees, etc. What I am thinking of as complicated and unnecessary additions. Much of which is what I think of as esoteric. I have a book called, "Foundation of Magical Practice 1" or something like that by a Josephine... Can't remember the last name. I have also read stuff by Meg Blackburn Losey. The whole draw a pattern on the ground, face in a certain direction, use these hand gestures, etc. It just doesn't fit me, it's the same for me with the usual Buddhist temple practices. To be clear I am no avid fan of any corrupted Westernized version of anything either. I don't need what I have called mumbo-jumbo in any form. So if LaBerge is bad, I will read the books, figure it it for myself, and be done with that methodology. Right now I am working through B Alan Wallace's book as I said. I just don't think lucid dreaming should be so hard to initiate and master. OK? I think the process of training yourself to get into and sustain a lucid dream should be easy. Not easy as in free of work. Easy as in free of complications. I don't mind hard work, doing whatever practices are truly needed for me. Also I am not against meditation, I just have failed to see any obvious gain from doing it the last few years, a big enough gain to make it worthwhile to continue. Of course maybe meditation is working more subtly. It's not like I have keep any before and after records. I hope that clears things up. To summarize, hard work is OK but strain is not. Spiritual is OK but esoteric is not. No preference of one training over any other, avoiding religion as much as possible. Thank you for all the links! I own both of LaBerge's books, I am reading B Alan Wallace's Lucid Dream book, and I have a hold on his Shamatha book. I was also able to place a hold on Susan's Happiness book/CD. I have saved the links to the rest. As far as nootropics I am investigating Lion's Mane to start with as I have an affinity with mushrooms. Then Huperzine-A and Bacopa Monnieri. Guayusa tea before bed for lucid dreaming. As far as what my culture has labeled illegal, fuck what they think! Only I have the right to say what goes into my body! If I had a source I would get it and use it. Acid, peyote, shrooms, ayahuasca and DMT to start with. But I have no such source, probably for the best for now. Michael Sounds like an awesome dream man!

Oneironaut I can not formulate a proper response to what you have said at this time. I can say only this much... I am tired of this heavy-handed approach used by almost every follower of every religion I have encountered. The hammer that says, "You have to do it this way or you will fail." With all due respect to those who enjoy or practice it, I do not need chanting, Tibetan singing bowls, hours of sitting on my fucking knees, incense, a belief in karma and reincarnation, the constant surveillance of every part of my body and all this other bullshit to lucid dream. I know this because my first lucid dream happened while I was still a Christian, before I started meditating or even opening my mind to other belief systems, simply by reading Mark McElroy's book. That is all I needed, that is all it took. Now maybe it can be argued I had some natural propensity for lucid dreaming that I since lost because of my own fear. It could also be argued that I do not have any such propensity, as lucid dreaming became harder for me, not easier, since leaving the Christian faith and beginning practices such as meditation. I do not know what the truth may be here so I do not claim to know. What I do know, for certain, is that I didn't need any esoteric practices to get started, and what I came into it, that was the first time I ever heard about it. I didn't know anything at all about it beforehand, at least under the name lucid dreaming, although I had recorded my dreams in times past. If you are a Buddhist or adopting Buddhist practices, then I would advise you learn how to be considerate, gentle and loving. When I first read these words you wrote earlier today, already very depressed, it was like I was already beaten down then you came by and kicked me in the balls. Repeatedly. These are not the actions or words of any Buddhist monk to my knowledge, although as I have limited knowledge, I could be mistaken. I can accept that the Tibetans figured out a way to apply Buddhst practices, including meditation and lucid dreaming, to their own unique culture. It has since developed as a separate branch of the same tree. But if one culture can take these teachings and apply them in a way that speaks to them and works with them, then another culture can too. We do not need Americans sittings in Tibetan Buddhist temples chanting and doing everything else I stated above. We need to grow an American culture branch of these practices. There is absolutely no need for all the mumbo-jumbo and religious overtones of Tibetan Buddhism. We have to meet people where they are, not where we want them to be, and certainly not where we insist they be. So let's figure out a way to bring the core, foundational material into American culture. Let's make this work for people who do not want to sit for hours on end meditating, who, in fact, derive little if any benefit from meditation. Let's throw out the psychological mumbo-jumbo too. I agree with you about that. Let's distill this down to its essence, so anyone, anywhere in the world, can use it and easily as well as effortlessly lucid dream. Instead of trying to conform others to whatever we want, lets love and accept them as they are and work with them from there. This is the sort of information and materials I am looking for in this thread. You can leave your esoteric and religious hammers at the door. There will be no conformity or conversion here. I have tried to put this as plainly, politely and simply as possible. If I have failed please accept my apologies. Please note I am not a monk, and have no monk-like disposition. I spent 10 days being, essentially, brainwashed during a Vipassana Meditation "retreat." I have had my fill of that shit for the remainder of this year, at least. FYI I have B Alan Wallace's, "Dreaming Yourself Awake" and have started to read it. So while I may not necessarily agree with what you have said, I will read and apply the teachings of this book, coming to see in my own experience how this approach works for me. I am doing that much at least. I can not say I appreciate what you have said. But I do appreciate that you took the time to post and share knowledge. Thank you for that. seekingbuddha If you would like to clear up any of my misunderstandings, I am listening, I will be open and receptive, at least initially.

I could probably talk endlessly on this thread but I'll just list some of my favorites- The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories of Fritz Leiber Clark Ashton Smith, especially his decadent Xothique tales/ prose poems Angela Carter's short stories, especially The Bloody Chamber collection Pu Songling's Liaozhai Zhiyi Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Out of Time, and the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath Lord Dunsany stories and his novel The King of Elfland's Daughter Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun Robert E Howard's Conan stories Short stories of Nikolai Gogol The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov And, if fairy tales and folklore count, I could list lots more stuff. My single favorite probably being Padraic Colum's Irish fairy tale novel The King of Ireland's Son

i'd like to know more about this too. I know a very advanced cultivator who literally stays lucid in his dream cycle, to the point that he sometimes cannot differentiate dreams and reality. He trained it by increasing his intensity in meditation throughout the day, and then staying lucid for the dream. He did astral projection as well, which he says can happen during the dream cycle too. Recalled many past lives too. The way he explains it is to hear the inner sound ringing, then ride that sound all the way until all the other things appear (tingling, lights, etc)... Then one eventually pops out when all of them become intensified.

I agree with Luke (above) that if this is continuing you should go see a doctor. You do say though that this was years ago - did you mean it's still happening? Generally speaking though I would say that your body/mind has ways of assimilating energy experiences which can often result in vivid imagery - sometimes dream-like and sometimes more real feeling. It's important not to get panicked by this kind of thing and try to see it as being both real and unreal at the same time. The mind interprets things symbolically so it might be worth researching the structure of the subtle body (in Daoist systems for instance), the function of the glands in your head and the meaning of serpents and so on in mythology. You can probably do a lot of this on line. The more you understand about what is happening the more you will be able to assimilate and purify the experience. However if you feel frightened or distressed then seek medical advice as soon as you can. Then if they say there is no physical cause try to find a reliable yoga or qi gong (or other) teacher who might be able to help you.

It's good to dream this way. The amygdala releases negative unhealthy and incoherent thoughts during deep sleep. ( link ) It's also good to stop trying to help others. From a karmic perspective, helping others removes their opportunity to redeem themselves. It's a double whammy, so to speak. It harms both them and you even though the intention is good. The best anyone can do, imo, is heal themselves and then help others to heal themselves. But trying to heal someone else, not oneself is like walking a tight-rope... That is the middle path, the grey path. I'm proposing the Right Hand Path. Heal ourselves. Help others to heal themselves. Teach them to fish... so to speak. But never to do the fishing for them. Does that make sense? It is a way of surrendering the fate of others while also not surrendering the fate of others. It's a loophole in the karmic system which can be exploited virtuously. Perhaps it, the loophole, could be named ..."doing good and turning away from evil without interference in The Eternal Dao"?

Cyd Charisse had childhood polio and was told that she would never walk again. But, her dream was to become a dancer. She did self-therapy, with an indomitable will and became one of the greatest dancers, in the world and those legs!

I read Handmaid's Tale in high school and it was a little too similar to reality at the time because this was before 9/11. Hated Oryx and Crake though because I had a similar relationship where I was the "snowman" in the friendship with my own Crake and have a hard time bringing myself to finish the Mad Adam trilogy. Don't know why you hate Dune, but to each their own. Haven't read much of Martin beyond Fevre Dream actually.

Not sure if this is applicable, but I've often had visions in luminous blue space as well as beings with blue color visiting me (mainly in dream teachings). I also often see my inner space in that electric blue color. I've met a few people who told me they see their inner space in that color. The first time was as follows -- I had many years prior (almost 22-23 years ago), at the beginning of my serious spiritual journey had a vision in which I found myself floating in the darkness of space, and then saw a bluish tinged part of space where I was pulled toward. When I reached there, I saw an enormous luminous electric blue egg crackling with energy (seemed to me like electricity like one can see in a tesla coil). As I watched it, it started to rotate. I saw Lord Krishna and the Buddha in alternate rotations of the egg. And the egg started to rotate faster and faster and then at such an incredible speed that it became a blur, and then it exploded. As it exploded, I saw stars and galaxies flying past me. Then again many times, visitations by blue beings. And then, again a few years back, I had a profound experience wherein during meditation I was simultaneously in the physical world, an astral world, and then also this blue dimension/space. I found myself going to this blue space and was surprised to find the blue egg again. This time, there were several beings around the egg, floating in lotus posture around the egg. At the top was Babaji (of Kriya yoga fame). Around him, in clockwise direction were Lahiri Mahashaya, Yuketshwar Giri, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, and Guru Nanak. I approached Babaji to seek a blessing, and as I went to touch him, he picked me up in his hand and swallowed me whole. I found myself flying through a wormhole of golden light, for what seemed like a long time, and then finally fell into a brilliant golden sun. I was a particle of Golden light, and I became one with the sun. And then after what seemed like a very long time, I fell through the sun into total darkness. As I looked around, I saw a blue luminous space very far away. And as soon as I thought of going closer, I found myself there. It was Lord Vishnu, lying down on the body of the serpent Sheshanaga -- sleeping. As I looked on, suddenly I found myself sitting in the full lotus posture within a lotus. The lotus was rising out of Vishnu's navel.

From my observations and contemplations I can definitely say we are not our thoughts alone. I believe that there is some kernel of a thing within us that collects our experiences, and that we have an alternative set of experiences we arent truly aware of that it encounters. I think this kernel of a thing, call it a soul if you like, generates our thoughts. Its influenced by our bodies actions and our minds choices, but it exists in another plane. For me, this plane is infinite; I have no static home, Ive seen in vision and dream many scenarios, and been told many things, things that do not necessarily correlate into one themed Universe. I think it is possible there is a home for this kernel of a thing after death, but I cannot be certain. Ive often thought that we are born with this kernel, that this kernel is us, and that our waking state is unawares of the going on within us, but is influenced by its memory.

Hello all, I am going to skip past all the times I have seen the future without someone to corroborate the facts. So, I will be talking of the times I have seen future events, told/warned the parties involved in these events, and then it has happened according to the way I saw it happen. A confirmed, but rather uncontrolled, vision. The reason for these visions is always unclear. They are rarely something major or important. I can not command them or control them. I am simply a witness. What is clear, is that certain things are set to happen, regardless of warnings or ways of trying to stop them, or change them. The future then, is already decided and we are simply carrying out the play like actors on a stage, puppets if you will, of things we have no control over. This is very important to understand. Because if it is true that the future is decided, we actually have no free will, we actually make no real choices, since those have already been decided and determined. I don't believe, if you understand what I mean. I know it to be a fact. So this is part of how the world "is" for me. I am not speculating or guessing. For things to happen, the way they happen, at the time they happen, all other things have to fall into place. I don't see the butterfly effect, or any way to really change it. Looking at it doesn't change it. Telling people doesn't change it. Trying to intervene is always not successful. In the sense of making it to heaven or hell, already decided before you were born. Seems rather unfair, doesn't it? In the sense of your "karma" and how you are punished, according to your "decisions" or "personal choices", already decided for you. Again, very unfair... We are puppets in this world view, with no way out, no way to make our own life, or our own decisions. Otherwise, how can visions of the future come true? How can prophecy be real? A simple example for you: I woke one morning straight out of a prophecy dream, which is different kind of dream because I am simply a witness to events, and I know they are coming, and not past, without knowing how or why I know this. On this morning, it involved one of the trucks at work. I arrived, made some coffee. The driver showed up, in a hurry, running late. I offered him a cup of coffee and asked if he wanted a bite to eat before heading out, to see if I could change the events. He said no, grabbed his coffee mug, and headed out. I said, you are not going to get very far today. He gave me an annoyed look, having seen my abilities first hand in the past. I heard the truck start and leave. I started making some eggs, enough for two. Within a few minutes, what I had seen was happening, there comes the truck, lurching and smoking, puff! bang! He came into the place, put his coffee down, and sat down. I have him a plate of eggs and smiled. He said, "I hate it when you are right...", and we both laughed. I had seen and heard the truck breaking down that morning. It is not an important thing, very trivial and very personal to us and the job of the day. So why that? The only outcome is that I am reminded that nothing is chance, everything is already decided. It has all already happened. Who is driving this? Who is creating the future? Are we pulling our own strings and then living it after we set it up? Is it some other force? Are we confused as to the flow of real time? Stay fluid

wJWU9e1-G0c Forest For The Trees: Dream We are all here in the act of creation Let's fly away on our imagination You take me to the highest heights and into the depths of the deepest abyss When I am dreaming, I don't know if I'm truly asleep or if I'm awake And when I get up, I don't know if I'm truly awake, or if I'm still dreaming Dream, Dream, Dream, Dream, life is but a dream Traveling the waves of an infiinite ocean I feel the deepest emotion I see a shadow of reality Please hold me closely and take me away I'm the first person you're the second person Earlier today I was in the third person Stop cursing, start diversing Oedipus is bliss the sunshine will affect your mind Stretch it out, don't doubt the amount my brain is caught I'm just blessed Trip hoppin', so I flow like a stream It's just a dream YTvwcLylZzs Tool: Lateralus Black then white are all I see in my infancy. red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me. lets me see. As below, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend. Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines. Black then white are all I see in my infancy. red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me. lets me see there is so much more and beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities. As below, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn outside the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend. Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition leaving all these opportunities behind. Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line. Reaching out to embrace the random. Reaching out to embrace whatever may come. I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human. With my feet upon the ground I lose myself between the sounds and open wide to suck it in, I feel it move across my skin. I'm reaching up and reaching out, I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me. And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been. Spiral out. Keep going, going...

Interesting thread. I have recieved shaktipat 3 times so far in this life. Once in the SY tradition, and twice in dreams. The SY shaktipat I received was very "mild' in comparison to the two transmissions I received via dreams. I did not feel much in the way of energy movements during or after my SY transmission, but I did have some "perception changes" which have stayed with me to this day. The second shaktipat I recieved was during a dream I had while doing a one month Hatha teacher training intensive. I was given shaktipat by my unborn (at the time) daughter (my wife was only 2.5 months pregnant at the time of the dream so we did not know it was going to be a girl yet) in the dream and was told what I was to name her Amrita Grace (which we did...she is now 1 month old). This shaktipat experience DRAMATICALLY changed the flow of energy here and I have not been the same since (in a very good way ). The third time I received shaktipat (also via a dream) it was from a yoga master who I choose not to name for personal reasons. During this dream I was touched on the back at the anahata chakra and on the crown chakra (simultaneously) and it caused an unshakable inner silence I have yet to lose touch with to this day (this happened several months ago now). This experience also changed the way the energy flows in the body here, but the most dramatic change from this dream would be the unshakeable inner silence it produced. Personally, I find shaktipat to be magical and life changing. BUT, that said, there is an element of "Grace" involved in recieving shakti that I think is very often overlooked. Shaktipat did not "work" for me when I went looking for it......it happened only when the Universe saw fit to grace me with the experience of it (for whatever reason). I know that a lot of people seek shaktipat because they see it as a "shortcut" to energetic or enlightenment experiences.....and in my experience, there are no shortcuts. Everyone must put in the individual effort required to drop the illusion of seperation. Just the perspective from here Love!

I was recently told that Robert Bruce had some good work out there, and when I read through "Astral Dynamics" I started to see a lot of things that had come up with me in my own dream work that I couldn't explain- so I have some respect for it because, well, I've validated it with my own practice beforehand, then again, everyone is different. Rawn Clark has great work, it's too bad he doesn't like Robert Bruce's stuff As far as methods, I really don't like the "set alarm, wake up, go back to sleep" method. Maybe it's cause I'm lazy and I don't want to get up before I have to I've never actually tried the method though, maybe it has fast results. For me the stuff that works is examining your dreams and trying to find recurring themes and elements, really focus on recognizing them, as well as increasing your awareness of various situations in real life, and fairly quickly you'll see some element in your dream and you'll realize it's a dream. Recently though for me, I've become lucid without any dream signs. I'll just suddenly go "whoa, dream." It might have to do with general awareness that I cultivate through meditation, or it might be because of energy work. However, I DO suggest that training to get a continuous, fully engaged awareness at all moments will get you into lucid dreams fast (though admittedly it's hard to do with the monotony of life). For me recently I've started to have a lucid dream in my first set of dreams, then in later REM stages gone into "regular" dreams, though there is some back and forth when it comes to when during sleep I have them. It just comes down to practice, and attitude. Try to have fun

Dream work is fascinating, I try to tackle it seriously every few years, but it ends up exacerbating my insomnia. There is an interesting schism in dream study. There is a Western Technique oriented approach which looks at it as a skill and more traditional approach that sees it as the result of deep cultivation and mature practice. Rawn Clark's written about meetings with other high level people on the astral plane, later they'd call each other to confirm what was discussed and how it was interpreted. Rawn is a pretty mellow guy, but he seemed angry when people compared Bruce Roberts dream work with his. He considered Roberts work to be shallow (I don't agree). Undoubtedly he'd consider Stephen LaBerge's material even more so, since LaBerge is all about practicality. Like Ya Mu and others, he sees a sacredness in dream work that shouldn't be done lightly. Here's what I think works best in the Western quickie model; meditate before sleep 30 to 60 minutes. Clarify the intent to be awake in the dream. Then set an alarm or telling yourself strictly to wake up 90 minutes early. When you wake up, go to the washroom, walk around a little, then set a strong intent to be aware within your dream. With fresh intent in mind go to sleep, preferably in another room. The dreams done in the last REM cycle are easier to recall. Michael