(this post, for some reason, didn't publish two Fridays ago.. so here it is and apologies for the wait and confusion)
(If you want to skip some anecdotes and backstory, and would prefer some applications, head to the second part of this article, as marked by a headline: Part 2)
It is a long, difficult path for many people to lucid dream. Many people stumble upon it, never again to experience it again. Some people make it their life's work, such as the awesome Stephen LaBerge - a name nearly synonymous with lucid dreaming, and some people think it's a load of bull. We, as people of open and inquiring minds are used to the latter people.. people that close their minds to such important ideas. Not to say that skeptics are bad, they are necessary, but there is a gaping chasm between skeptic and stubborn closed mindedness.
My opinion and experiences are of the observation that consciousness is more than what we are taught and that exploring and opening it would bring about massive benefits to society. Imagine a world where we're partners with our subconscious! So many misunderstandings in the world are caused by projecting our own subconscious emotions onto others. More problems are caused by emotional repression and misinterpretation etc. Anyways, this is besides the point of the article, I don't know how I feel - or more importantly: how you feel about my long social opinions ;) This is a diary about spirits, not politics!
In my quest for pain management, as well as my mission to unravel more truths about the unseen universe, lucid dreaming has come up many a time in my meditation study. I have been meditating for well over a decade (almost two) since my pain began to affect my schoolwork in grade school. I was introduced to a guru who opened up my mind to such things. He was amazing. He could see that I saw spirits, and he saw the same ones I did.. I was thrilled to meet someone like him with such an open mind and such experiences! Being dead, I have often tried to contact him since I heard of his death - as contacting him in life seemed near impossible. He wasn't "connected" to anything. No phone number, no address, no email (back then I was only a BBS frequenter and some IRC so email would have been near useless anyways) but I would see an alternative magazine with his smiling face in the "Upcoming Talks" section and would want to go see him but never had the guts to do so. I felt he wouldn't have remembered me or if he did.. would he be disappointed by my lack of progress? One of the things we had talked about on our meeting (an intimate gathering of about fifteen people, in which I totally hogged his time.. or maybe he hogged mine lol) was lucid dreaming. This was a new word to me, a new world, a new thought. I thought half seeing spirits was the be all and end all of my abilities.. but opening a world of conscious dreaming seemed like a fairy tale come true! I imagined sleep being another phase of being awake.. time no longer "wasted" just being unconscious at night! I imagined how much creative work I would get done, studying for school, and learning to block my pain...
But that is not what lucid dreaming is, and I was disappointed and it was drifting back into the obscurity of forgetting. I thought that if it wasn't all that, then it wasn't worth the hard work. Oh was I wrong!
The journey of lucid dreaming is half of the importance of the thing!
When you work on lucid dreaming, the best way to start is by learning to meditate, in my opinion. Learning to feel the different levels of awareness (aka Different intensities of brain activity, such as Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta and Gamma waves you hear about {including from yours truly}) and what each level of awareness does to your mind and body - and more importantly in the context of this article and blog: spirit. There is SO much more to people than current cultures allow to grow. We're stunted by fear, prejudice, closed mindedness, stubbornness and ignorance. What potential wasting away! So many answers hide inside of us due to this cultural boundary.. but I am so glad there are people like you out there.. people interested in that potential, people who dare to challenge social taboos. Responsibly, of course.
The more I explore these levels of consciousness, the more I begin to strengthen and widen my bridge to the dead and the other amazing things out there to be beheld. Consciousness and mastering consciousness is what defines a spirit after it is freed from its fetal stage as a human. The most vibrant of all spirits are the ones who challenged the status quo of the mind and developed it... Mmm I could write an entire book about this.. let's get on to the more practical applications.
Part 2: Lucid Dreaming, Starting Your Journey
I want you to start your journey as soon as possible. I want you to open the wrapped present that is your mind and take it out for a real test drive. I want you to hunger for more and start exercising the most important muscles of your infinite existence. No time like now.
The first video I am making is a guided script to build lucid dreaming muscles, but it'll take a while to complete as I am a bit of a finicky creator. I want this to be the best it can be to give you a great head start. But what can I do to help you before that? The answer comes from a wonderful guided meditation guru, Jody Whitely. https://m.youtube.com/user/jodywhiteley
Ms Whitely has been an unknowing companion to my sleep since I discovered his videos. Great guided meditations, free and very well scripted and executed. These meditations include Lucid Dreaming scripts. When you have time, go see those, use them during a nap or in bed before you go to sleep at night. The scripts are deceptively simple! Everything down to the pacing of the words, the tone, the volume, and pitch are all used to change your consciousness. I am a little shy but I hope to mail her sometime and thank her for the help. If her voice irks you, just remember - it is done in a special way to aid the meditation. It is not just a guided meditation, but a type of hypnosis. Don't worry, you won't cluck like a chicken or suddenly have the urge to buy strange products, you are completely in control. (And this is not an ad for anything! I am not getting anything for the suggestion to go and use the videos.)
An alternative is to use what's known as "Binaural Beats" - which just means putting on headphones and sounds are used quickly between left and right in order to create a trancelike state to adjust your brainwaves. Just think of two drums, one left and one right, being drummed almost at the same speed. Your brain can hear the difference and it is trying to synchronize the beats of the drums to close the tiny gap, as human brains like orderly sounds. The gap's size, that is - the time between the left drum and right drum's beat - changes the brain's work to close this gap and this affects the brainwaves. So you can slow it down and speed it up in order to change your brainwave from fully awake, to asleep and dreaming. Amazing stuff. This isn't new.. practitioners of shamanic magic and Vodun (Voodoo) have long used this to enter trances by using drums and other percussive instruments. With technology, you can do this alone and without the arm pain if you're new to drumming ;)
Isochronic tones are a different technique but work on the same principle to have a similar effect with the same goal. It's a fancy way of saying: a pulsing sound characterized by periods of silence and sound in varying pitches and speeds. The sound wave itself usually looks like a string of beads. These tones use the same type of gap closing mechanism in the brain and can be used alone or in concert with binaural beats. These do not require headphones, and that is the biggest advantage.
If you really want to get fancy, there is a thing called a Mind Machine which incorporates sound and lights (from a weird looking pair of sunglasses you put on) to have a more global gap closing effect. I have recently (today) completed a four year mission to find one at an affordable price and I will review it upon getting the machine. Hopefully I can get some ad revenue lol.. although money will never change my opinions. I couldn't live with myself*. Anyways, try free stuff before you spend hundreds on a Mind Machine - I found one for just a tad over a hundred dollars and mainly it is to help with my pain.**
If you are unwilling or tentative about each of these suggestions - then I suggest you get a good book about meditation and start there. Different people require different methods, so it is hard to suggest a book. Personally, I prefer Pranayama - breathing exercises which I use to enter deep meditation. Some people prefer attempting Zazen, a Zen meditative state of completely clearing he mind. Others prefer visualizations, or even what's know as a Talk Down, or even a rocking back and forth for hours for example. Find your way!
I will post about this again soon, I am planning for next week, to take things to a new level for opening up to spirit communication. I wanted to get this out to get you started on the meditation aspect.
*Even when I speak a wrong word, hurtful or just wrong, it haunts me more than some spirits do. I recently began to make amends (I am not in a 12 step program but in a conscience clearing mission of my own artifice) for all the big and little things I have done in my life. One for such a slight error as saying they were booty-full instead of beautiful as a joke.. even though I am rather fond of big rumps, I found out that she was, unfortunately, not a fan. I couldn't fathom the kind of remorseful hell I would go through would I lie to my readers after being a proponent of honest relating of experiences. What I tell you is the truth as I know it, and not only do I do this as a show of respect, but also a hope that one day everyone will relate their experiences truthfully in use of future of study - edification is useless if based on lies - and lastly, I cannot stand more hauntings of wrongdoings. The biggest wrongdoing was during a time of duress, I broke a friendship in impatience of her being inconsiderate of my illness. We're both wrong, but I take the onus of apologies. See why I asterisked this note? Would have been totally out of context in the article. Goodness, I can't even imagine how much I would suffer would I commit a crime.. or God forbid, kill someone... when even saying one wrong word haunts me for years!
**I have actually been searching for the device since a physiotherapist used it on me once
and refused to let me use it again. It actually stopped my pain looping.. pain looping is when
someone hurts you and the sensation repeats over and over again. For example, if someone
pokes me in a non trigger point area, I feel it for at least 20 mins. After his treatment, the looping
disappeared! I cried with joy and asked for more. Later, he said. So I waited and paid him nearly
2k during only three sessions (or was it two) - a great chunk of the money was for blood tests,
DNA profile, and adrenaline profile.. but then the treatment would be (for three months) another
2 thousand dollars! I couldn't afford that! Only after the hook did he tell me the price. So I have
studied the machine (he wouldn't tell me what it is or where to get it) and tried to find a name..
and I found it! But then I had to find one I could afford. Now, for the price of two of his "treatment
sessions" - less if one includes the travel costs and time and energy - I can do it at home? Oh
wow.. I have high hopes but as always - low expectations. Easier not to get hurt that way. I will
keep you updated.