What I've done in what we're doing so Eben Alexander, if you haven't heard of yet that actually applies a little bit to the topic that we're going to be exploring today. I think it's been released to you guys a couple of days ago. He's the guy this academic neurosurgeon who had this quite remarkable and near death experience, which is definitely connected to kind of automate out of body experiences, which is connected to this wild notion of creating a special dream body, which is my stage seven or Dream Yoga. So I'll talk a little bit more about that. Christopher bass coming up on the 11th session two and then I've got some other ones in the work. Sometimes they tell me they're going to nail down a date that they don't get back to me so I'm always a little reluctant to say why, specifically, this person coming up. But the other events really are the bail retreat, the lucid dreaming Dream Yoga Retreat, the only one I'm doing in person and I spend that one's all sold out at a really stunning place. By an hour outside of aspen by Rudy reservoir, been there it's really, really gorgeous. And then the MEDLINE nature of mind program, and the one that I think was just listed a list I forgot to ask you to pick that one up is the week long, in person Bardot. Dima Todd and I'm doing it the newly named they finally did some rebranding Shambhala Mountain centers now called drala Mountain Center, which I think is a good move. And so I'm doing a week long program up there in August. So I'm psyched about all that. So what I wanted to share with you today is when we enter it's we've got two stages one through six of my cartography of the Dream Yoga curricula, and I always make this a little bit of a disclaimer, this is not a traditional exposition. Because with the exception of what the Tibetans have in the way I learned it was basically through a three step kind of curriculum. And so I'll review what those are from that from that perspective. But those three steps are so big there's there's what I do is I had baby steps or add water to them to make them more marketable. So the three classic steps are number one, is just attaining recognition. So the first stage and classic Dream Yoga in the Tibetan arena is just getting lucid. That's no big deal, right? No lucid dreams, no Dream Yoga. And actually actually like, think Stephen, the bears might have said no, no dream recollection, no lucid dreaming, no Dream Yoga. So all these things kind of build on each other. Right? And so then what the Tibetans have been talking about is the next quite extensive set of practices that are not unpacked. That's what I do, I unpack them are the stages of transformation. And we're still involved with that section. So basically, stages one through seven including today are more about stages of transformation, even though inherent within it are the third stages of liberation, self liberation, but specifically, by stages 89 really work with the highest stage of celebration. So we're still in the process of transformation. And just to review why is this so bloody important? Well, because when we're working with our dreams, what are we doing? We're working with our mind, right? Dreams are manifestations of mine. So transforming the content of the dream is really learning how to transform the contents of your own mind. And every aspect every one of these stages with the exception of my stage one which is really just entry level, have fun lucid dreaming kind of thing. I remember going for the joyride. They all absolutely positively work with progressive stages of of emptiness, progressive stages of meditation and emptiness, every one of these as with every arguably every aspect of the Buddhist tradition, period, everything circumambulated nothing. Shakespeare was out of something when he said Much Ado About Nothing. Everything works with emptiness slash fullness. And so that's why this particular teaching is the Dalai Lama says anybody can practice Dream Yoga.
It's just that a practitioner, especially so called Dream yoga practitioner, Buddhist dream yoga practitioner does so with the explicit attempt to explore emptiness manger, Robert J. says this Sonia RBJ, virtually every master I've talked to you, you know, they they really, I wouldn't say argue but they certainly put forth that. How do they put it means your MPJ says learning emptiness in the daytime state is a tougher classroom because of all our reifying tendencies when we enter the dream arena we're working with a more distal de reified quality of mind. And that's what emptiness is the process of de reification. And so therefore, really everything and Dream Yoga is about the central teaching in Buddhism, which is understanding experiencing the empty nature of reality. And so we're not overtly talking about what what emptiness is, this is what we do in the deeper dive program in the fall, but just so you have a kind of orienting generalization that when you're working with these stages, that's what you're doing. Learning how to change your mind, and learning how to explore the nature of reality. Which is what the Buddhists describe is emptiness. It's still these last three stages, stage seven, stage eight, stage nine. These are definitely the more difficult in advanced one stages eight and nine in particular, as we'll see, there's tons to say about those two goals are the ones that slide into sleep yoga, which again in the NEMA tradition of the four schools of the Tibetan approach, the Ningbo or old school, sleep yoga, luminosity, yoga, that is the main practice that's the main lateral meditation because if you accomplish the safety in the deep sleep state, and they're scientists now they're actively working on this because they are now getting a population pool they can get into the labs that can do this. Hasn't been substantiated yet has not been proven. Tom Metzinger says that, in fact, I was involved in the study with him. I know a little bit and I agree with him. He's really one of the world's preeminent philosophers really sharp guy. He he really says that when sleep yoga lucidity and sleep can be scientifically established. He said, This will be a revolution in the mind sciences. And so practitioners in this arena had the capacity to do that and sometimes you can do it. If you do it directly through the Nigma approach. It's a little bit more advanced, you maintain full consciousness in the deep real estate. But you can also use the Dream Yoga approach as a platform. You can use Dream Yoga as a halfway house and I'll say more about that later because that's the way I work with it. Looks like when you're halfway there. Lucid dreaming is like partial lucidity. Full lucidity is lucidity in the deep dreamless state. And so you can use partial lucidity and I'll show you some with you some tips. There's 234 ways you can do it. You can use lucid dreaming as a way kind of halfway house platform. For diving into the full emptiness, the full luminosity and most of those terms, by the way, the same luminosity and emptiness. You're basically saying the same thing. There's just gradations of what aspect you're referring to. So therefore, what we start to work with stage 789 This is like, like not really graduate school. This is like getting a postdoc. These last three stages are the most advanced, the most difficult and therefore really the most transformative, the most profound. And so, let's dive a little bit into stage seven. This is the stage where you cultivate a special dream body in each one of these stages. And this is what makes these stages more advanced as you progress from stage to all those things nine is they require enhanced stability, enhanced focus and really quite vivid lucidity. And so like I shared with you, at least I think I did when I do my dream yoga practices now. Sometimes they're just serendipitous. Sometimes I just go to sleep and say, Okay, let's just see what happens tonight. And then I'll just play with it serendipitously spontaneously. Other times, I'll have a very specific intent like tonight I'm going to incubate I want to do stage seven, this one or what dictates what I will do is I wake up in the dream and depending on exactly this, how clear how stable how focus that lucid am I if I wake up and have a really strong lucid dream, like I talked with Eben Alexander about the hyper reality the hyper lucidity of using near death experience. You can have these and I'm sure some of you had hyper lucid dreams. When I stumbled into one of these. That's when I go oh, this is a good one tonight. And then I go all the way up to these higher practices.
So these are meant to inspire not to intimidate if they don't land with you. If they're like, Whoa, this is way beyond my paygrade don't worry about it. You know not everybody wants to study quantum mechanics, right? So people are fine doing arithmetic, but at least this shows you what's possible. And so this is where you create a special dream body that's where it's referred to you which is made out of Pramod mind, pra and a parent of mind. And so what exactly is this? Well, this is where the whole subtle body system comes into play and Dream Yoga and that's what Dream Yoga works. With. It works with the subtle body the subtle body is what supports the dreaming mind just like the gross body supports the gross waking mind and the extremely subtle body which is literally called where body and mind are completely inseparable. Because that's what supports the lucid sleep arena. So the special dream body is made out of prana mine which is is the basic framework that substantiates holds the dream experience altogether and the subtle body. Again, there's just a tremendous amount to say here. There's a huge literature 1/3 Really 1/3 Of all Adrianna tantric Buddhism is devoted to the subtle body. And this is actually irrespective of Dream Yoga. These are what are all called the inner yoga. There's a vast set of teachings on these inner Yogi's that work with a subtle antibody and so the subtle inner body is in itself is a really interesting thing on one level it is a so called physiological entity, the Western or the Eastern medical systems, target that body for health via things like acupuncture. moxibustion and the like the spiritual technologies target that body for spiritual transformation. And so that's the physiological subtle body which is made out of these channels and all the stuff that we talked about earlier that that I think we already went through if you're attending the book study group. We're going through to do that in my Dream Yoga Book. The winds, the drops, the channels, the wheels, product, Natty Bindu and chakra. And so really, it's like it's like an anatomy and physiology physiology course there's just a ton to say about all these mechanisms. But of these, the one that's really being cultivated here is Prana. I'll say a little bit more about that in a second. The other thing I want to toss into the mix is when people talk about the subtle body, there's also a phenomenological sounding body. So this gets quite nuanced. It's not just the physiological subtle body that is within us. That is actually more fundamental to the gross body, which is why you can work with a subtle body to affect healing parenthetically. That's one manifestation of the subtle body, subtle body phenomenologically is your emotions, your thoughts, the subtle body of that kind of mental arena. They're not the term is isomorphic, but not isomorphic. They're not exactly the same, but they're definitely related. So when people talk about subtle body, it's always helpful to point out okay, what exactly what kind of subtle art are you talking about? And then, of course, as I'll talk about shortly, then this also connects to things like out of body, Astral body, all these other. There's so many arenas that are exploring this kind of intermediate bandwidth.
But prana is is really, you can't say one is the most important of the four of the chakras, the noddy's the products and the produce. You know, which one is more important? It's a little bit like saying, well, is my blood more important than my my respiration or my nervous system? You can't really say that but for many reasons, when you're doing inner yogas work to work with a subtle body. These are sometimes also called Wind yogurts. You're you're you're working quite specifically with the subtle energetic winds. And so in a very direct way, this is what's actually being targeted. And so this problem body, which has not been substantiated by medical imaging yet, right, there's no at least I'm not aware of it. Any imaging technology where you can put a body and even though there's, you know, some possible connections to the whole Kirlian photography thing, you remember that from way back? I can't speak with any authority on that. But there's no imaging that I am aware of yet, where you have this capacity to with this kind of X ray vision see the subtle body especially the prana but prana is that which moves the mind is that which really innervates is the kind of carrier the act of movements of really the space of the mind itself. And so that that dimension alone, is you might suspect it's just a tremendous amount to say here, but what special dream body practice with stage seven works with is cultivating a special dream body made out of Pramod mind that then allows you to differentiate, disconnect this subtle body from the girl's body and then there goes you, you literally overnight at like FedEx, right I'm going to FedEx my consciousness to whatever and I'll talk a little bit more about that. I love this play on words you overnighted overnight express to wherever and so this is this is classic, it's in the literature goes back to the time of the Buddha, allegedly the historical Buddha, the ultimate lucid dreamer. And he, although there's your support says he didn't sleep at night like we do. What he did was he would I mean, on some occasions he would create the special dream body and he would just leave his body and go to different locations in particular to a place called Tushita heaven. Oh my gosh, you can see how much is involved here. Right. So now you're getting into different dimensions, different realms, and this is where the stuff just gets so out there. Definitely connected to the Pure Land stuff. Not exactly the same to Sheeta Heaven is not a pure land, it's still in samsara, but it's just really high level samsara and so allegedly, the Buddha created this special dream body in his night, when he slept, left it FedExed his consciousness
institution to heaven where he taught his mother who was hanging out there, Maya, He taught his mother the AVI Dharma teachings and so, this particular really esoteric thing goes all the way back to the life of the Buddha. That this is what he did, you know, he just he his body may have laid down in repose, but he you know, Buddha's are on 24/7, they never turn off. And this is what he would do and go to different pure lands, go to different places and help people. So this is actually a very interesting thing, just parenthetically, to throw into the mix because especially I'll talk a little bit about pure lands. One of the reasons to go to a Carolann is to cultivate these types of proficiencies more overtly, and then what you can do is when you travel you can you can affect people you can influential people, you can work with their minds and I agnostic on this. I can't say what the total authority based on my experience but I'm sure some of you would nod your heads. One I've definitely had experiences in my dreams, where like, hey, this dream did not come from Me. Every once in a while actually be in the dream and say, Hey, wait a second. This dream is not coming. For me. This dream is not taking place in my mind. Or I should say in my body, or this particular experience is definitely not self induced. It's that solo cystic there's some external agency that's coming into play here. And so you'll start to see I'm trying to unpack a little bit of it now, that this stage seven, even though the stage itself is really pretty simple, you create a special dream body and you go places, and the Dalai Lama playfully says on several occasions, this could create the like the ideal spy, and there's been some information and again, I can't track this down for sure. I wouldn't be surprised that the CIA really has been working with this sort of thing. If somebody knows about this, there's probably some paranormal study going around about these sorts of things. But I love with this particular stage does along with some of these other so called more advanced stages, because they they start to envelope a host of really interesting topics. So even though the practice itself on one level is really simple, create a special dream body, go someplace, go to a pure land, go to sukawati go to Sita heaven go to Paris, whatever. The instruction itself in the practice itself is actually relatively straightforward in that regard. Doing it is a different story. And then kind of unpacking all the implications, ramifications around it. That's also a different story. And I'll get to some of these in a second because there's this stuff implies so much. It challenges so much and I'll be reading share with you a couple quotes that I think you might find illuminating in this regard. So this is in fact what the Dalai Lama says this is cool. There is such a thing as a special dream state and that state, the special dream body is created from the mind and from vital energies again prana Vayu known in Sanskrit as possible within the body. This special dream body is able to dissociate from the gross physical body and travel elsewhere. And he's asserted that he finishes this is not just imagination, with subtle self actually departs from the gross body. And then He further says that this practice of developing the special dream body is ultimately ultimately aimed at achieving the sunbug A kya. So let me just say a little bit about that. Again, you'll see what is here, our gross body connected to nirmanakaya body of emanation, if you know that term, solid dream body connected to somebody, okay, and you could say that actually, when each one of these outer bodies is purified, that's when they become their respective kya. So the outer body right now is not nirmanakaya. When it's purified, it becomes their monetary, subtle dream body right now isn't that Soboba kya body of bliss, but when is purified, it becomes the symbol kya. Very, very subtle body is the Dharmakaya that doesn't really need to be purified because that in and of itself is the Dharmakaya so the three bodies that have so much explanatory power, or absolutely positively envelope doing this. And then next month when we come back and talk about stages eight, nine, we talk a little bit more about In fact, the Dharmakaya aspect of this, so stay tuned on that. So back to him the Dalai Lama, the practice of developing a special dream body is ultimately aimed at achieving some Boca kya whereas the ultimate purpose of ascertaining the clear light of sleep is achieving the Dharmakaya exactly what I said I was going to talk about next month Okay, so more on that later. So this is obviously connected to a ton of stuff like near death experiences like when you have a near death experience. Connected or you could say almost associated with having
a special dream body if you literally are going to see to heaven to cavity or someplace you are having an out of body experience. And so this is connected, especially dream body is definitely connected to OB ease. And I'm going to read some statements from you from some really clever thinkers and then give you resources here where you can explore this yourself if you're into it. I'm sort of into this in a more kind of academic way. I've had a little bit of experience with this as a dream up stage, but not a ton. And so I'm going to be speaking mostly from what I've studied and read in the literature, but I would if somebody has had these sorts of things, I would love to hear about them and I'll also share ways you can test because I hear these things all the time all these programs I do people come and they tell me I want to you know I've had these out of body experiences I've studied at the Monroe Institute I'm not dissing any of those stuff. I'm just agnostic and sometimes I'm it sounds like a completely legitimate thing Who am I to say otherwise? But often and I'll show you some quotes here often the vast majority of these from what I've gleaned and talking to people, and also reading the literature, the vast majority of OBE e's are either connected to hyper lucid dreams or altered embodiments. They're not actual out of body experiences. Now that doesn't dismiss the legitimacy of this. I think this stuff absolutely happens. But when most people when I when I really pulled him aside, and I talked to him and I asked him questions, and then I say well, you can try you can test this, you can do this, you can do this. Then they go you know you're right. You're right. This is not an OBE and one of the reasons I toss this out is because there's a tremendous literature on this people who study remote viewing. I mean, there's a lot of scientists that are working with this stuff. And yes, there's a lot of information but it's not to the best of my understanding and I'm reading literature now. It hasn't been conclusively proven in the lab when someone does remote remote viewing, that they're actually somehow having an out of body experience. So you can see all the types of things that are tossed into this mix. But here's the thing, here's one of the areas where this stuff gets super interesting to me. And that is that and then again I'll tell you a little bit about Bob puffing around all over just because there's so much to say here. I'll tell you a little bit about how to actually plant this and try to do it as a practice on second because again, that part is not that hard. The instruction is not that hard. Doing it is what's hard. It's a little bit like really on one level the instructions for lucid dreaming. Early Stage Dream Yoga, not that difficult. Doing it is a different story. But what this begs for me what this opens for me, and it's probably already starting to do this with you as it stretches your mind a little bit
is that it? It really starts to challenge for me and this is what I love about this stuff. It starts to really challenge this whole notion of physicalism and materialism. And this is what I talked to Evan Alexander about a lot that he when he had his outer body or his near death experience. I mean, this guy was basically brain dead. His neocortex was was applesauce. I mean, there was no way. There's no way neurologically that his brain was capable of bringing but even the hallucinations that scientists say and I've talked to some of these and it's really kind of sad. They just ah, they this categorically dismissive there's no way. There's no way this is what happened. What happened, and it's like, I heard one really famous scientists say, this is really revelatory. At least he was honest. I wouldn't believe it, even if it was true. At least the guys being honest, wouldn't believe it even if it was true. And so what I love about this stuff, all this stuff, the nd ease the OB ease, especially during body stuff, and again, I'm still open minded around this. I don't have hardcore answers on these things myself, as part of my continuing that is that absolutely, positively challenges the supremacy of appearance of physicalism and reductionism of matter that, hey, if you're really associating mind to brain, there's no way that this can happen. It's just it's just physically impossible. And this is why it's categorically dismissed by most of the scientific community because they they just completely conflate mind to brain and there's no way that this can happen. But if you really start to explore the nature of mind and reality, which stages like this can do in other explorations can do you realize the world is not made out of matter? This is this is just so important. The world is not made out of matter. It's made of mind consciousness. And so in that case, there's this ties to hopefully answer the bottle stuff after death stuff. On this level, there's no place you can go that isn't consciousness. There is no place you can go but isn't mind. You're simply transitioning from one sense of embodiment to another. And so when you make this again easily said, but not so easily accomplished, jump, this is a total game changer. This changes everything. It then makes this stuff more tenable. And for those of you who again, are deep divers in this, I want to explore it. I'm really into this in a big way these days. Bernardo kastrup, I'm reading every book that guy wrote, he's a pretty darn sharp cookie. ruber spyera his buddy. He's written I'm reading one of his books called called the nature of consciousness, which is pretty good. And then you know, this monumental fact I have one of them here. Because I wanted to read from it. This monumental three volumes said, Look at the size of this puppy. It was like 900 pages. What is it? Oh, I'm sorry, eight. I'm here. It's only 800 pages, irreducible mind toward a psychology for the 21st century. So this is part of a series we came out on, jeez, almost 20 years ago.
irreducible mind beyond physicalism and consciousness unbound. You know, these are for the really deeper divers. These are heavy academic, scholarly papers compiled from sources all over the bloody place and you cannot read these volumes. And Evans said the same thing. I completely agree with him. You cannot read these volumes and not be seriously challenged and affected if you still believe in materialism. Because there's there's there's so much more explanatory power, when you look at reality in terms of mind and that matter. And so I'll say a little bit more if we have time around this. Again, this is just a colossal topic. But it's something that's really powerfully suggested with this particular type of practice. Because if you don't maintain this type of view, this is just This is bullshit. I mean, categorically, there's no way this can happen with a materialistic view. But if you don't, if you no longer just reduce everything to dirt. You realize the world is really just it's really made. It's just mind stuff, it's consciousness. Then all of a sudden, hey, wait a second, this becomes a little bit more interesting and in the reason in addition to challenging materialism that you may want to do this is because these are unconscious polluters, these views, whether we know or not, we are raised in a cult of scientific materialism and it is a cult because its belief is based on belief. It's not based on fact. It placed the supremacy of explanatory explanatory abstraction over direct experience, and it's just ridiculous. And so the reason is really important like okay, okay, this guy is boring me. Why are we talking about this? Well, because whether we know it or not, and until you enter a spiritual path, where you really start to look very deeply and you question the authority, the tyranny of appearance, we all have a greater or lesser degree, subscribe to this materialistic view. It's why we're afraid of death. For one thing. If you're afraid of death, raise your hand if you're afraid of death. It's because you still believe in a materialistic worldview. So if you may wonder I don't think the world is made of matter. Well, if you're afraid of death, yes, you do. And so this is why this stuff is colossally important. It's malware, it's infecting the operating system. And so whether you know it or not, most of us really were affected by this malware. We don't even know it. And so therefore really working to get the stuff to understand it and that you experience it and your meditation through deep contemplation through these nocturnal meditations, where it becomes your direct experience. Then you you replace this vicious, vicious negative circle with a vicious positive feedback loop. Because these belief systems and I talked about this with Evan as well the power of the placebo effect. If you believe in materialism, is it it has a powerful no SIBO effect the opposite of placebo. It takes you down and infects you. And this view will prevent you from having these experiences because you don't believe they can happen. The beliefs systems are so powerful they act as as reducing valve they shut down the possibilities of these mistake types of experiences. And so therefore working with this as Westerners who were really broad and because of the science and technology and all the relative success, you can't deny that we drink this Kool Aid, and it absolutely snuffs our ability to have these wild, seemingly wild experiences. They're not wild at all. They're normal for a really open mind. And so the image that Bernardo has here Yeah, I don't want to get too caught up here. I get so excited about this. I can't stop. Bernardo has a really wonderful image around what the mind is the self senses in relation to this. I just love it in his book, great book. First one I read of his called Why materialism is baloney. This is not a bologna book. This is a powerful book. In fact, I talked to refer to Bernardo now as the Bologna man. It's no bologna book. This is a really brilliant book. And the cover of the book is this whirlpool in Bernardo goes into this unbelievable explication. Of the Whirlpool metaphor, which is it's just bloody brilliant and just just a paraphrase that is it has so much explanatory power. Think of yourself as you know, your your stream. You're right along the river. And it's really one wonderful thing to contemplate when you're along the river and the stream is going down and you see the little whirlpools forming right so the rivers going down the Whirlpool starts, and you watch it for a while. It's pretty cool, start start spin spin, spins and then eventually dissipates right now the Whirlpool comes spin, spin, spins and then dissipates.
Well, this metaphor is really beautiful for the relationship of mind to self sense. Because think of the stream is the stream of mind the stream of consciousness awareness. Think of the Whirlpool as our self sense, a highly self referential spinning Trumper MPJ talked about it as a cocoon. Nice image. But I think too static. I love the Whirlpool image because it's active circumambulate what the Whirlpool spins around if you look in your sink, fundamentally the Whirlpool circumambulate what nothing space when I went to this thing is that the whirlpool in the river you can't see because it's not spinning fast enough. But fundamentally, the Whirlpool spinning nothing emptiness, everything's spinning around nothing in the in the faster this is my extrapolation on his stuff, because I'm riffing on this. Now with some books I'm writing, the faster the Whirlpool the spinning, the stronger the sense of self, because that's what that's the more is proportional to how contracted you are. So if you're really spinning, you're really contracted the Whirlpool is really strong. You feel like you're separate from reality, you're separate from the stream. Well, what happens every night when we fall asleep to a certain degree, is that Whirlpool dissipates it relaxes. If it didn't, we wouldn't fall asleep. And then when it opens back into the stream of mind, you have the availability to work with these sorts of things. Hey, what about death? That is the ultimate unwinding. And this is also connected to the promise to the winds because that's what the winds do. mixing metaphors because no metaphors complete mixing the metaphor, the winds going from water to air, the winds are what drive the spin. And so when you die and you unwinnable you unwind, the Whirlpool relaxes back into the stream from which it arose. That's all that's all it is. That is the relaxation of the individual contract itself sends a whirlpool back into the stream of awareness. And so if you understand this, then in a microcosmic form, this is what happens every night. And then you can have a like little subset Whirlpool that happens in an OBE special dream body and send it elsewhere in the stream of mine. So okay, let me just tell you a little bit about how to actually do this. Again, this is very simple. I want to have a little time for conversation. I have a hard stop today at two o'clock or three o'clock my time, I should say. So I want to have a little time for conversation. But here's the way to actually practice this.
Again, I don't think instruction is not that difficult doing it is what's difficult. Is that what you want to do throughout the day like with any of these practices, you set a very very strong intentionality and the text I'm telling you, this is why I tried to unpack them even more. My instruction for this when I did my retreat was like five sentences. That was it. And so it's like, Well, okay, I guess this is helpful. And then I started over the years after I left retreat, counting supporting sources to help me understand it, but the instruction is actually very simple throughout the day, with as much belief and this is why the belief is so important here. Placebo Effect mind effect, belief effect, believe this. Believe it believe it. Tonight. I'm going to have a lucid dream. So that I can transfer my consciousness to x and then what you do and this is totally connected to pure land practice this stuff all comes together. Because this is the same thing you want to do to get to cavity completely connected. To get let me just say in relationship to the cavity practice and you'll see how it works here to get to the cavity after you die. We talked about the weekend. One of the main things you do is you study the topography literally it's like like watching a travel guide. You read the literature you read the sukawati sutras in particular, the meditation sutra, and you become as familiar as you possibly can with what that particular escape is like. And then MindScape becomes landscape, so to speak, eventually is no land, it's all mine, when you die, and then that familiarity meditation to become familiar with what it really means. That familiarity, familiarity will deliver you there. So in exactly the same way. This is the way you work with this. You if you want to do sukawati Dream Yoga practice, polo practice, word on that in just a second. This is how you do it. You read literature study. You can then create a special dream body to go there. Let's say you want to do something more conventional you want to go spy on your girlfriend. spy on your boyfriend may not be the best intention and intention is important if there's a self serving intentionality that tends to be a little bit defeating. So somewhat playfully that may not work for you. But you get the idea. Oh, I want to go to the Grand Canyon. I want to go to Bodhgaya or something and it's what the literature says. Say I make the aspiration I want to go bed guy up and you visualize it, visualize it just like you do connected the generation stage meditations you visualize it, you stamp it in your mind that's that's what puts the stamp on this envelope. And then you go to sleep with that intentionality can completely perfuming your mind. So this is what it says in the literature. Literally. This is the text I will recognize my dreams to be dreams. I will transfer my dream body to fill in the blank and receive teachings to benefit others. This is the literally the instruction from one of the texts that I worked with in my retreat and so connected with this is a little bit of a secret sauce ingredient. Don't do this to spy on your boyfriend or girlfriend do this to be a benefit to others. That intentionality to be of others actually is helpful. And so therefore let's see what else I want to say here with my notes. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything here
Yeah, that's a dream. Yeah. The Dalai Lama actually playfully as a quote that the Dalai Lama actually playfully talks about how you could do this to become the perfect spy so I'm sure Putin has got his team on it. So one last comment about this and I'll tell you how you can test these sorts of things and then we are then we can open it up is you can connect this practice to Bardo yoga, to final nocturnal meditation. I've already made a brief suggestion to this. This is also one of the ways that I trained in this. So I did this classically in my retreat, through the six yogurts of Naropa. We work to cultivate a special green body and then we came back when we did Bardo yoga, which is the last of the six years. When I did part of the yoga we came back to this aspect of Dream Yoga as a way to work with what's called POA. So, some of you know this term if you don't again, like hey, can we get more esoteric pa show wa transliteration literally Tibetan word means movement transference. usually translated as ejections of consciousness. There are at least five types of tantric POA and then a whole battery of what are called sutra powers. This is a big part of what we talked about in the Bardo teachings. When people think of traditional POA you're like, Oh, the weak in some Buddhist magazine that so and so Rinpoche is teaching POA virtually 99% of the time that's called Nirmala Kayapo. So I just mentioned the five so that you know what they are. The topic itself obviously is colossal. But when people talk about normal POA if they talked about it at all, that's what's called Nirmala Kayapo. Remember connected to the outer to the bodies. The highest type of pull up is called Dharmakaya. Boy, it's not really an injection or consciousness at all. The mind just naturally moves after death. That's the highest form of some mocha kya po was the second highest form of poor there that's brought about through proficiency in what's called deity yoga generation stage practices just to again show you where this is being contextualized and then there's two other types of power one is the type of Guru Yoga cola. Let's do come delivered by devotion. And then the last one is really the one that's applied here. It's called celestial POA, or Dream Yoga, POA and again, if you believe in this sort of stuff, and I'm a sucker I do because this makes so much sense to me and I've had a little experience this is the best thing that you can do. Short of attaining enlightenment at the moment of death is exactly this type of cola and the Bardo becoming, which is where you do exactly what we're talking about now, but now you're doing it in the fluidity. You're in the stream. There's a little sub Whirlpool, there's a little bit of sub vortex going on little spinning that says hey, I'm dead. Recognition around that there's a little sub vortex a little self referencing, and then you say, Okay, what am I supposed to do? Oh, I can do Dream Yoga pole, I can move my mind to a pure land using these types of techniques. And so this is what Tsongkhapa says again, all this stuff, believe it or not, it's all over the place in the literature. This is what some compasses founder of The Globe put tradition engage in visionary travel by projecting yourself to the various Buddha fields such as sukawati to schita aka nista a little clarification there. I wonder if this is a translation issue because to Sheeta and akinesia are not Buddhafield their god realms so that's a little booboo, but I'll just leave it engaging visionary travel by projecting yourself to the various fields such as sukawati, to sheet akinesia, and so forth. There you can meet with the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, venerate them, listen to their teachings and engage in many other activities of this nature. Hey, sounds good to me. Sign me up. Instead of these Viking Cruises that I get with my New York Times every Sunday, we should have this kind of travel log right. So
okay, enough time for a little conversation. So how do you test let me come back very briefly, and then I'll pause for a year so we can talk about it before I leave. There's a way you can test whether you having a legitimate special dream body experience or slash out of body experience or a lucid hyper lucid dream. And one way to do that, and I mentioned this all the time when people ask me is spin and I've done this I actually have done both these tests because sometimes I have these experiences and I can't tell I just can't tell us that okay, this is really clear. Is this a real OBE? Or am I just having a hyper lucid dream? And so there's several ways you can test this one is spin. And I do this I go okay, okay. I don't know. I don't know what this is all spin, spin, spin. Like a whirling dervish. And like 99 I'm ducking schema versus that some studies on this thing. I'm not sure that in relation to the OBE thing, but in terms of changing dream scenes. If you're in a dream and you spin, I recommend you try it. First of all, it's one thing to do if you're losing the dream if the dream is starting to turn cartoon like and you're about to lose your lucidity. Steven came up with this technique you spend. It's a way to keep in the dream. So that's a double like a two for one thing. What happens is you spend virtually every time when you stop spinning. If it's in a dream, you'll be in a different place. You're not going to be in the same place where you were when you started spinning. Well, then it can't be It can't be an out of body experience. You're just having a hyper lucid dream. If you spin and you stop and it's the same scene and you're not happy, you know, you're still in that kind of reminder, it could very well be an OBE The other thing you could do is try reading. Try reading I have find I found it. Maybe you've already had this experience itself. I find it really difficult to read it has to do with the emphasis on the hemispheres of the brain when you're dreaming. If I can't read them, I'm really struggling to read in a dream and I had one not too long ago where this is the case I said, this isn't an out of body experience. This is totally a dream, because I couldn't read. So that's another way to kind of play and test with these things. But I wanted to close and I realized I'm racing through some stuff and we can finish next time it's only because I've looked at like I wanted to read two things from two really powerful thinkers around this topic because this is a huge arena. I find it super interesting. I wanted to read one thing from my friend Evan Thompson, and then one from Thomas Metzinger. These are pretty powerful. Thinkers. So this is this is the first part of this is Evan sharing some experiences he had with his father William Irwin Thompson, who was the founder of the lens final scene. So this is what he says when I got a bit older my father told me the full syncretic yoga philosophy, cosmology of the body and yoga. The physical body is called the food sheath. The Annamaya cosa is the outermost sheath, or Kosha of our full beings. So now this is women Hindu language they don't talk about kayas they talk about cautious. The life energies sheath a prana Maya Kosha. What theosophy calls the etheric body makes up our vital being the mental sheath and Mama Mama Maya Kosha. And the higher intelligence see the regatta Maya Kosha make up the astral body over mental being subtler than the astral body is what you will call is the bliss bliss sheath Anandamaya Kosha many of you who are yoga practitioners, you know these terms in theosophy calls with causal body the physical body is the body of ordinary waking life the astral body is the body of dreams, and the cause of body is the body of deep and dreamless sleep. For years this cosmology of the body gave me a way to understand my out of body experiences. This is Evan thinking that he was having out of body experiences and other experiences but as I learned more about the brain and studied philosophy of mind and say I have to say something happened to me. I began to wonder same thing like Yeah, really. You out of body experiences really show that one's consciousness can separate from the body. These experiences truly a form of disembodied consciousness or some kind of illusion or hallucination.
What I've come to think is that out of body experiences are a specific kind of altered state of consciousness that's dependent on the brain and the body and this is where I actually don't agree with him here but that that's just me. They aren't so much experiences of disembodiment is experiences of altered embodiment. That's very clever thing to say. Far from showing the separability of the self on the body out of body experiences reinforced the intimate link between our body and our sense of self. Such experiences have special neural I'm sorry, specific neural correlates that overlap with the neural correlates of switching between first person and third person perspectives. When we imagine and when we dream, like dreams out of body experiences, our mental simulations are creations of the imagination, but like lucid dreams, they're subjected to voluntary control. And you can know when you're having lunch, and then Evan goes on. This is one of the strongest chapters in his book, waking, dreaming being that this chapter is called floating. Where am I? I recommend you read it. So one last thing from Thomas messenger. Then I'm gonna read a question that Wendy sent in have a few moments of discussion Okay, so Thomas messenger again, if you don't know this guy's work, he's one sharp cookie read his book, ego tunnel. He did a seminal research paper. I think it's been published. I was part of the study, where he's, it's called minimal, phenomenal experience where he and his team are trying to again work with this whole idea of substantiating formless awareness. So this is Thomas it is interesting to note how out of body experiences phenomenologically are not states of embodiment, this embodiment I should say on the contrary, there always seems to be a spatially located phenomenal self, even if its embodiment is reduced to a pure spatial point, a visual potential agency and quote, so basically, as you might suspect, and I'm not dissing either these guys I know them, they're really bright. But they're, they're kind of showing their colors as reductionist materialist, physicalist. And so from their perspective, and again, throwing a little bit of skepticism here. In my experience and talking to I cannot tell you every time I do a Dream Yoga program I am not exaggerating. 123 people come up and talk to me about this sort of thing and they share my their experiences and the vast majority of the time they're not OB ease their altered embodied experiences. So one question did come in and I'll open it up a little bit short today. Okay, this is from dear Wendy. I have attempted OBE experiences using guided meditations and on my own good for you. I can feel my arms and legs move independently from my body just before my body is about to raise up I get extremely hot, so hot that I have to throw off the blankets and even though I'm determined to make my way to the other side of the fire. It's not the same as having hot flashes. We've had a great deal of experiences with these and this is different to dry heat happens every time. Throwing the blankets off NZ experience I wanted to mention this because other women mentioned she another woman mentioned she had this experience and said you're never heard of such a thing. See now I've heard of it three times. I have another friend that experienced this also. So that the three of us so that is three of us in my circle of exposure. I was wondering if there was something if this was somehow a burning opening of the the knots in the subtle body could be windy but let me tell you about my experience with this. It could be but here's the deal. The knots are we're pretty naughty. People play on words intended. We're pretty naughty, and we're pretty naughty people. And so when we're talking when when and I noticed from my personal experience, because I've done these practices and these are something I can speak with personal authority on when you're doing the inner yoga practices that bring about real heat to mode Sandali Kundalini, that type of a It's not this type of heat. That's a byproduct, the real deep purification opening. That's what happens when the channels and the knots are released like you're intimating and the energy flows when the heat that's released from that is brought about it's not a superficial, more thermodynamic it's actually a just a tremendous bliss. The thermodynamic aspect is a kind of an outermost expression. Now I can't say I don't have the capacity to say that there isn't some type of opening and purification happening with you or these other people. I just don't know. But what I do know is that when when these real channels and energies are opened the superficial like burning hot type thing. That's an outer manifestation of what's really taking place within your body. It's a deep blissful inner heat. Yes, there is an outer component and you can watch films on this. So
what comes to mind there's a there's a really classic classic shown by Herbert Benson I can't remember the name of it actually have an on DVD somewhere. The classic one where where they bring the monks out and they have to dry these blankets frozen that kind of thing. So again, I can't I just can't speak with total authority that is there this type of purification happening with you and these other people. It could be absolutely but can I say for sure. No, I can't. It's like trying to make a diagnosis from without having enough data and also not having that particular type of personal history behind it. So it's entirely possible that there's some knots being released, maybe more on the exterior because these knots run all the way through our bodies. But if you're connecting it to the deep inner heat, and that's what's not clear in the question, then what you're manifesting is really not what's connected to these deep inner heat releases, because that type of experience is tremendously blissful. It's not uncomfortable. So if you're there and want to come on and say something about that, that's what does come to mind around that. That's all I have to say for now. Okay. And if there was a live question or something in the chat column, that's great. Otherwise have got like three minutes. There was a couple that came in through the chat and we have two hands up, so let's get okay. Hi, Joe. Hello, can you hear me Oh, Hi, Joe. How are you here? I'm fine. How are you? I'm good, basically good.
Glad to see you. I'm confused as usual. I understand sleep. Deep sleep. I understand no self. No, but I understand the dream body as in you know, when I first met you and we went outside at Shambala Mountain Center now Drella Mountain Center and we all spun around in circles and I learned that I could spin around in circles in my dreams. That dream body that I developed at that point. It seems as though in my dreams, I can either have a dream body or not have a dream body. And my question to you today is, is the dream body that we're talking about in Dream Yoga, that specific dream body where you conjure up a body for yourself and do things does that make sense?
Not entirely. Yeah, not entirely so so just say a little bit more. It's like completely clicking.
Well, it seems like in my dreams when I'm when I'm working with dreams and I and so if I jump off something if I decide I'm going to jump off a cliff or something like that, I generally put my feet out that I conjure up a dream body to do that. In the dream. Yeah. Or I float from one place to another and I have got doesn't seem to have a dream body. Is that what we're talking about when we're talking?
No, not quite. No, that's good. No, not quite. That's actually that leads to a really interesting set of topics because when you're Yeah, it's not the same thing. Good question, Joe. Because when you're when you're actually in a in a dream, and like, you know, like we're talking about it's not a special dream body thing you're in a dream. Yes, you can say that you're inhabiting the subtle body but this is your this is where it gets really interesting and somewhat subtle because you're you're within the confines of that context, the confines of the subtle body within your body. But the type of phenomenological body that you're having, because again, they're not the same. You actually don't have a body until you generate it in a dream. Right. Yeah. So I think we may have talked about this before, you know, the whole Carlos Castaneda thing, you know, look at your hands. Yeah, I'm still stuck there. Yeah, that there's no hand to look at. There's no hand in there. You generate it in the act of looking. And so this is where you have to centrifuge out the phenomenological dream body versus the physiological so called physiological dream body, which is what you descend into when you're in the dream arena, but the type of body that you're talking about, it's not the same. And so when when we're working with special dream bodies, as mentioned here, you're working more with a prana body. In other words, you're working more with a so called physiological body that can then move, or at least that's my understanding. Again, this is one of these topics where I wish to heck I could sit down with you. In fact, I didn't do it with Dr. Nieto as my bad and actually press someone like that about some of these details. Because some of this is is it comes from my experience to a certain extent, but some of it also comes from the literature and so I'm always a little bit cautious to speak with so called authority around some of these areas, especially when the material gets this kind of subtle, but what I'm hearing from what you're talking about, there is a difference between the phenomenological solid body and the type of body that's actually leaving, even though they they're connected like is when you leave. They're definitely connected when you leave. You have that experience. That's the phenomenology part. But when you're actually in a dream, and you try to conjure up a body, in fact, there's no body there, quite literally, that body has conjured up in the act of actually looking at it. Does that make sense?
What do you mean by leaving?
Well, you leave when you when you cultivate when you're leaving. When you're having a special dream body experience, you're leaving this body. You're leaving this, okay, okay. Yeah. And that's the physiological part. That's that's the part of you that goes right.
Yeah, you're right. You're right. And
there's some substrate theory because it's not completely disembodied. There's some substrate that houses that that's the solid body, right? So total body is different from the solid body that you feel that you're having when you're actually in a dream because when you're in your nighttime dream, there is no body there. Trying to find it. I'm not kidding. This is a really what this is trying to try to do it as an experiment. And I'm not kidding because, you know, looked down, it looked down, you know, there's nobody there.
I looked down, I make one up,
and there's no way there's no there aren't even eyes. This is all habit. That's that's that basically habit karma. Same thing that happens in the Bardo. We have to just mind disembodied, you don't even have eyes that are looking there. And this is where stuff just becomes mind bending, but I don't want to go too far down there. That's that's a little bit more outside of the track of what I think you're asking. But is there is that sort of help?
Yes, yes. And eventually I would like to know also there is some kind of presence body that can happen after people have died and they go and visit other people. Oh,
totally. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Mundo Maya,
that body, I would love to understand all
that's connected, but that's also a different. It's called Gandharva or Manomaya. That's in the barter literature. So I'm going to let that one slide is connected. It's not quite the same thing.
Thank you very much.
Because at that time, the product you know the Yeah, again, I'll let that go. There's just so much to say there. It depends on where we're part of the bar you're in. It's a slippery, subtle topics. I'm gonna let that one slide for now. Okay, Derek. Okay, I got time for Ooh, yikes. One more than I gotta run. Sorry. Okay. Let me get Katie real quick. And then Katie. Uh, yeah, the other ones I'll get I'm sorry, everybody. I got a little bit too carried away and talking about. I'll look at these questions and get the rest of them next week. But Katie, if you have something far away,
Andrew. Hey, yeah, I'm I'm just curious if you're aware of any reports or evidence of people having kind of altered the experience of altered body sensations or actually like the feeling the sensation of the prana mind leaving the body in this stage seven.
Say more, you mean that they actually feel like they're being slightly drawn out? Yeah. I have heard of that. Yes, for sure. Both going out and coming in. Okay. Yes, there. There is some literature around this, where there will be somatic sensations in some people describe it is really when they're coming back in. Sometimes I'm not so comfortable, literally kind of sucking feeling and they kind of get dropped in and then or conversely, the people will feel it. There's no consistency in the literature that I've read, Katie, but there definitely seem to be as you're suggesting. somatic sensations have this kind of leaving and I've talked to people again, who have mentioned this to me, and those are the ones that pay a little bit more attention to because usually when people talk about that, then when they continue in their conversation. In my experience, it tends to be a little bit more suggestive of the veracity of these legitimate OBS. So yes, that definitely seems to be the case. Okay, thank you. Yeah. And the literature is out there. You know, there's there's actually a fair amount it's just a matter of, you know, sifting through the kind of New Age fluff. Get some of the more rigorous stuff and I'm not dismissing it categorically. But I think we just have to be a little bit careful slash suspicious of some of these claims. And when it comes to these sorts of things, what's the how does the jingle go? It's important to keep an open mind but if your minds to open your brains will fall out, right? I really liked that one. So somewhere in there, we have to find there's a middle way and to me, I don't agree with Thomas I don't agree with with with Evan in this regard. Because, again, when you realize the Nature of Things is really not mine did made it mine made it mine made mental cognitive, then these types of things become much more possible, much more real. And so it really to me just opens the mystery and the wonder of the whole thing, but sorry after a little bit quicker than normal folks, I've got I've got an appointment. I need to run to. So next time when we come back and if there are any questions I'll ask Alyssa from the chat column to save them and send them to me. I'll definitely address them next time. But now we next stage is eight and nine now we started slipping into lucid sleep stuff really formless stuff. These are in my opinion, these are the two most important and most interesting of the all nine stages. So over the next couple of months, because there's so much to say they're probably going to take a little while to unpack these two because they're just so bloody rich. But anyway, thanks everybody. Really appreciate your time. Nice to see everybody to whatever extent dedication of bear means anything. We can gather we've done here, send it to all sentient beings, especially all the poor people in Russia and Ukraine. That's still so extremely difficult to watch over. But until next time, Dream Well sleep well. All the best