Ryan Hurd on the Importance of Ritual Practice Around Dreams and the Magic of Liminal Objects

4:40PM Feb 20, 2023

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Ryan Hurd

Keywords:

dream

lucid dreaming

talisman

talk

liminal

object

lucid

amulets

power

move

book

intentionality

world

practices

bit

reification

ryan

ritual

put

great

Welcome, everybody to this nightclub interview where my guest is a second visit by my dear friend Ryan Hurd. Who is as you'll see, and if you remember, remarkable authority in the world of the nocturnal practices, and so, I'll introduce him with bio and we're gonna just jump right in exploring his latest book, which I just totally loved. So Ryan Hurd is an educator, author and dream researcher is interested in consciousness studies at the intersections of ecology, spirituality and material culture. His latest work is lucid talisman, forgotten law, which is available exclusively at Lucid talisman.com. He is also the CO editor of the influential scholarly collection lucid dreaming new perspectives on consciousness and sleep, which is a magnificent two volume set, which I have and I happen to have one volume right here. EPS absolutely devoured this set. Ryan has been featured on NPR, CNN, coast to coast Psychology Today and many other venues. With a background in both dream research and archeology. Ryan currently teaches graduate level courses at University for Peace in Costa Rica, and National University in California. Ryan is a member of the International Association for the Study of dreams and abides by their ethical guidelines. His website dream studies.org has been going strong since 2007, and now includes his own online education center. Dream studies Academy currently lives in Philadelphia. So Ryan, nice to see you again, man.

Thanks for having me back. It's so good to see you, too.

Oh, this is great. And I can't wait to jump into this really fun book. And I have to say one thing that I loved about it, it was it was it was so precise and so short in the best sense of that. It's like Oh, my God, finally I get to read something. That's not going to take me a month. And yet it was written so well and had so many jewels in it. It was like wow, I wish I could read more books like this. So that's what I want to start talking to you a little bit about, but I want to share before we get going into it, I want to share my own personal experience when you first so generously sent this. So this is one version of the talisman that we're going to be talking about. And so Ryan very generously sent this to me a while back. And so what I did and I want to share this with you is I did exactly what I did when I attend really big empowerments kala chakra empowerments or whatnot in you may or may not know, Ryan that what happens in the course of these multi day events is the big llama, whatever. Teacher Rinpoche at the end of one of their days will actually give everybody in attendance a little piece of Kosher grass, which is like a little piece of straw. And the instruction is to put it underneath your pillow that night and just let's see what happens. And every single time I've done this, it's like holy moly, Batman, something really happened. I mean really remarkable dreams, that connection to the empowerment and so when I got this before I read your book, I said I'm just gonna do with this what I did with my little cushy grass, and so I put it underneath my pillow and lo and behold, an amazing evening of really rich dreams. And of course, lucid dreams, right it was I woke up the morning with just big smile like hi, Fi Brian. This stuff really works. And so let's talk about this because this is definitely not part and parcel of standard lucid dreaming approaches, and at least not in the literature that I'm aware of, but you're probably more versed than I am. And it's not overtly especially talismans in the dream yoga tradition that I've studied the most. There again, there's some aspects of it like I was sharing with my story, but it's not as overtly referenced as it is in what you're presenting with this. So talk to us. Let's just start from ground zero like where does the word come from? How do you use the things and I will plant a bunch of questions in your direction. But I really want to encourage our listeners are like whoa, this is a really cool, wonderful augmentation addition to our armamentarium our skill set for bringing about lucidity and let's fire away

if thanks and so I've got my personal one here too. And it's the first generation and how you know it's the first generation is that the coins are on the same side whereas with you know if you look you look at a modern like a quarter, the adverse in the universe are reversed. And so when you flip it over, you see a different set, right, you flip it and so the second generations have the flip the first generation doesn't anyway, this thing has been my constant companion since 2015, I think was the first ones that we mentioned that looks like this. But yeah, so here's the thing about talisman in the process. And I think it's delightful Andrew, that you had such an immediate experience that was positive. Anyone? Yeah. You know, and so, what that tells me is that you know, it's the power of ritual that really undergirds the entire thing. And of course, lucid dreaming induction and lucid dreaming culture is full of rituals. And what the book does is it just makes that conscious. It's like Hey, check this out. We're actually invoking ritual powers here, that are something that humans have been doing for a really long time. Let's make that conscious, let's use that to our advantage. And you know, do it proactively rather than talking. You know, we talk about techniques and we talk about you know, cognitive, you know, biases and we talk about all these sort of like psychological terms. But when you physically imbue an object with with power or intention, such as a dream journal that you put besides your bedside table, you're enacting a ritual. And so the talisman is just essentially another version of this it's it's it's the opposite of a new idea. It's the old idea. Yeah. And so talismans are really old word it comes comes from an Arabic term, amulet, as well as a very old world word. It comes from I believe Greek and there are two different traditions that kind of come together in modern society, but in the you know it over history, they had different denotations but today, people tend to use amulet and talisman sort of interchangeably, and I'm comfortable with that. I think that what's less important is like keeping true to that tradition. And more important is let's use these objects for you know, in ways that are beneficial, and that provide us with power. And so the lucid talisman came about because a friend of mine, Lee Adams, who is also a lucid dreaming author out of Seattle area in Washington State reached out and said I'd like to make a dream coin and Lee owns a business where he produces metals and emblems and other kinds of like specialty coins. And there's a huge subculture, by the way, in this, you know, golf golf tournaments. You see that you know, and not only that, though, the military is a huge producer and consumer of specialty coins and that's least background as as a veteran. He that's, you know who so this is the first time that we really decided to do something in this in this nature. And we so we made 100 of them of this sort of first draft and I didn't sell them. They I gave them out to friends. And then we use them ourselves in for me, just like your experience Andrew, it was immediate, that that this was effective for me as a physical object that that I essentially am able to focus my intention make it real and then essentially carry through with my neck desires for remembering dreams, or having a specific question that I want to ask to the dream you know, dream on Dream incubation, that old skill, that ancient skill, and then lucid dreaming which is a you know, a very specialized form of dream incubation. Right. Lucid dreaming is essentially incubating a kind of metacognition in the dream. And so it's less content based and more about meta meta meta. In so yeah, it was really effective from the start friends told me the same thing. They're like, wow, this is really cool. doesn't work for everybody. And that's also interesting. And so I think there's certain people who are just attracted to that. And I think that man that's, that's, that's the way that it is. Like there's certain folks who understand and love to work with what I call a liminal objects, right objects that traverse the you know, the waking world and the other world the unseen. Yeah, I

was so glad you close with that because that's exactly where I wanted to take us. I found that one of the highlight insights in your book but I also wanted to share what you write in the book. Around the etymology The origin of the word that is connected to the word tillow says into teleology, which really is designed to bring to an end and so it really, it harnesses that etymologically and then also, please correct my pronunciation but the goddess of ritual, the Greek goddess of ritual, to let a or to lead that it's connected to that and so I love this kind of stuff because as a liminal object, and really retrospectively for me, Ryan rather than just so you know, in my kind of nocturnal curriculum, I used to have this is my cartography of course we have a four nocturnal practices, right lucid dreaming, Dream Yoga, sleep yoga, bhakti yoga, but since then, I've retrofitted with the help of Jennifer do pair in her languaging which I really like liminal dreaming and boy if ad really enhanced my nocturnal curriculum. And so this whole, this whole phenomena of liminality is something it's completely resonant with Bartel principles like something bridges between two different worlds. So talk to us more about that because that to me is so bloody insightful. How does it actually act as a liminal bridge? Or liminal object? And then perhaps a little bit more because this is this is where we start taking in part of the liminal principle, transition from the world of materiality, because here we've got this seemingly solid material thing, but yet we're going we're using it to imbue it with with spiritual power. So even right there, that's an estimation of the limit liminal journey because here's something physical, right, and viewing with spiritual power, like how does that work? Why does it work? So pardon my excitement, but I think this topic is just so cool. Yeah.

No, thanks for thanks for bringing up you know, in dream amulets, to write in does liminality the history of dream amulets is fascinating. Goes all the way back, you know, you can really look at its cross cultural. There's some really fascinating stories. That I dug up of, you know, 18th century amulets that were used to protect from nightmares. In apparently what I would consider today, what we would call today sleep paralysis, nightmares. And so there's this entire rabbinic tradition. You know, in the Jewish culture, but also in other cultures as well that that, that have seen this liminality so liminality, right, the movement between worlds is is is something that is always interested me. And I first was interested as an when I worked as an archaeologist, which was my sort of first career out of college. And I became interested in how in household archaeology, what is you often see is that people divide human activities up into, they call it zones, activity zones, and so and this is a based on material evidence. And so what do you see you know, you see, firecrackers rock over here. You see pottery shards over here, you see post moles where the house structure used to be and and then there's these blank spots, sometimes in the middle, and especially at thresholds, say where the door you know, enters the world in there's something sometimes in archaeology about conspicuous absences. Right and so liminality shows up in the archaeological record, sometimes as a conspicuous absence. In other times, it shows up as peculiar choices. And so for instance, the traditions in early modern Europe of protecting doorways with particular objects, like iron or crosses, you know, the old, the old Irish horseshoe over the door, right, protecting the threshold there so so something that we have done as humans for a very long time is notice boundaries between zones and we protect those boundaries with spiritual emblematic powers. So you know, because that doorway, in the most basic sense, is allows us to leave but it also allows others to permit entry and that is trouble. It can invite trouble. And so how do you protect your doorway? How do you do that? And so in So for folks, if you think about pre modern folks who are suffering from tears of the night, as David Hufford called the sleep paralysis malady, in other kinds of extraordinary events that happen at night, in this the spirituality of the night, right deities, and demigods, and in ancestors and spirits and angels in all of this sort, translates into the household level in protections of liminality. And one of my favorite modern examples of liminality that's kind of hidden in plain sight. Is the Christmas Eve tradition of leaving cookies for Santa by the chimney. And meanwhile, what we do or what often Christians do is they have garlands on their doors and windows, and Holly right, and wreaths, and red sashes. And so, what we do around this very powerful time of the solstice and in the quickening is we protect every entrance to the doorway from malevolent forces, except one. Except one, and that's the chimney where we invite this weird demigod to come down and provide gifts and we provide an offering and so we channeled the spiritual power of the house into the chimney for this one event. That is all about liminality right there.

And it's an interesting also that that's a unique door that joins heaven and earth right most of all, a lot of other doors are horizontal, this is a vertical aperture of opening it so this is so so but interesting. So this immediately Ryan begs the question of how does one use an amulet? Obviously, you're intimating that it can be used as as protection, which I think is really a fantastic way to engage this type of object, but maybe let's backpedal just a little bit. This stuff is so Reg, how does one like activate it? How do you mentioned in your book very beautifully? How does one activate an amulet and then how does one use it actively? I mean, what outside of what we're intimating here one would be protection of interests of horses and I want to get I want to circle back around to that later. Because this is a really big topic, in terms of like the influence of seemingly external agencies upon our own personal mindspace. But that's maybe a few minutes down the road. But let maybe with your permission, backpedal a little bit like this comes in the mail. How do I activate it? And then how do I use it actively? How what are the multitudinous ways that I can engage with this nocturnal adventures and my diurnal adventures as well?

Yeah, so so the main thing is, is to have a clear intention of what kind of dream experiences are you wishing to bring into your life? And so that's different for every person. And so it could be as we talked about, metacognition, as a dream incubation it could be I'd like more lucid dreams, but some people also are looking for specific right answers to questions or they're looking for meetings with a deceased loved one or creative solutions to problems. Mathematicians are looking for good. Good equations. Computer programmers are looking for solid code all the stuff we know, right? We know it comes in dreams. It comes in hypnagogia. It comes through intentionality and by creating space for it. And so when the product shows up, it's a coin and you imbue it with your own intentionality. by a number of ways. The first thing that I recommend is that people purified and so, you know, there's traditional ways of purifying a coin and this is to get, you know, it depends on your worldview. But if you want to remove like my traces from this because I'm the one who ships this out, you want to maybe run it over some cold water or put it in some salt, right, these are traditional ways or perhaps some smudging you know, some aromatic smoke, right cedar for instance. And, and you can say a prayer at this time, as well to to sort of say, this is an object for me to focus my dream energy, however that may be. And so that's it. That's really what an activation isn't an activation when anything is to you is to say I'm going to use this in a specific way. And in no other way. And so and so what happens with all the metal objects is is that things are really exciting at first, and then we get used to them being around because we de sacralized them, and then before you know it, it's banging around in the washing machine, right and so when that happens that's aside, I need to put this away. Because this is not a time where I'm actually doing active dream incubations or I'm not using the coin in a way that is helpful. And so I you know, I suggest to people to put it away, put it in darkness, put it, put it in your underwear drawer, put it wherever you you know is that special sacred place that no one else can go that is that that you hold you do maybe your bedside table in bring it out when you want to use it. And and that's just what it's for. And that's how you maintain the power in the relationship of the object.

So, this is so great and so so let's say a little bit more Reiner, let me invite you to say a little bit more. Again, this is where this this is one reason I love this, this particular phenomena altogether because on one level, oh this is really nice. This is a really cool looking coin right right dandy Great Great. paperweight great little

it's a great paperweight

but on another level it's actually quite profound. And and the the avenues profundity that I want to start to explore with you a little bit is this whole issue of liminality and the so called for lack of a better phrase the impregnation of seemingly material objects with external seemingly external powers. Because this is very interesting because in many, many traditions if a particular substances and blast isn't activated, it just carries I mean No, kind of covert, esoteric powder is in my own experience, like if I could take my camera and show you I have I have tankers all over the room. I have wonderful roupas little statues, and every one of these has been empowered by moments where they do these quite amazing rituals. And this is the difference between going to a trinket shop in Katmandu, where you can get anything and go home and put it underneath or whatever, or you get it and then your llama charges it and then you take it home and you put it on your shrine. In fact, you're not you're not supposed to do that until it is actually activated in that regard. So something quite beautiful is taking place here that maybe we can explore the transition in the liminality between the spiritual and the material, because it's like okay, from a purely physical list, materialistic point of view, okay, like, there's just no way right? This is a physical world. This is a physical object. How does mine how does spirits somehow impregnate into so called matter into me and then I'll pause for a year here is that this then starts to go really deep, because we start to really question the relationship and the difference or not between mind and matter, spirit and matter. And so maybe a little bit from your experience of the phenomenology of the power of blessing, the power of bringing the special so called Special Forces This is better than the Greenbrae by horses into these objects that then like a wait a second there, there really is something going on here. So can you talk to us a little bit about your understanding of that?

Yeah. And and, and I think that skepticism is really healthy because people often say, Yeah, but does it work? And the answer is, well, it works if you allow it to work. And so there's no no objectivity here. There's only the subjective analysis, which is where all the good stuff of consciousness is anyway, right. And I love this topic. But I look at the historic, you know, sort of the long tail of history because I see that, as you said, and in the Buddhist tradition, there's this there's this really rich use in history of how objects are used and carried and passed on and blast in. In European traditions we have these as well and in for there's some commonalities in the commonalities are that certain kinds of objects are better as liminal objects than others. Right? And so objects made of metal are, are classic iron, and copper, right? They're classically used as liminal objects. They have properties that that show up in the other spaces. They they they present themselves without without bidding in this is how people learn about these properties. Another one would be certain kinds of stone you know and all you can get into Gemini ology but but like obsidian as as a liminal object as volcanic class is something that that this was one of the aha moments for me honestly, of how liminal objects work and before the talisman. I had an experience where obsidian showed up in a dream as a liminal object and essentially in the end, it was a very odd dream, where I essentially inserted a piece of obsidian into my eye, almost like I was inserting a cassette into a cassette player, or a Nintendo cartridge into an NES, like that and there was some pain. And then my vision clarified in the dream after I did so, it it was it it was just this intuitive movement that happened. And when I woke up, I was like, Well, that was really odd. Why obsidian and then I realized I was sleeping in my office and I keep a piece of obsidian in that office space in the corner of the office to sort of absorb energy. And I had set it there when we had moved into that house, probably eight or 10 months beforehand, and I had forgotten about it completely. So the obsidian was there the whole time holding space, and then it emerged into the dream in this new way. And I said, that is liminality that is an object that transverses the worlds in it doesn't have to do anything with necessarily my intention ality there's something else that's present. That is beyond right, my own neurotic intentionality, right, there's something deeper. What is that? And that's what kind of got me started with this level of thinking that I found so exciting. And so I said very specifically, do not bless the talisman said it ship out to people because I don't think it's a good boundary for me, or for any of the folks that I work with. And so that's why I provide instructions of how to do your own concentrations but I love this idea of say, like a special like a special weekend where then I would like handed talismans off then it has the energy of our time together. It has the energy of relationship and in everything that was spoken about and felt internally is well represented in that object and so that's something different. But yeah, I've you know, there's, you know, some some French historians who say, if you ever buy an object with money that you go into an occult shop that's already consecrated says the shopkeeper run away, right? That's that's not what you want to be getting into. So there's there's some interesting tendrils here that have to do with how do liminal objects hold on to disperse and communicate power, intentionality and even information. Can

you say a little bit more about that, your understanding of that?

Well, I think it's a great mystery to me, and I came with this with a very skeptical mind honestly, is I'm one of these people who has a very rational, materialistic dualistic perspective when I'm awake and then at night, it all dissolves and leaves me befuddled. And so this is my constant grinding of ego. Is this stuff. How does this stuff work? And I've realized I can't, I don't fight it anymore. I just I use it and I work with it. Because it is effective

in and what I love about this, Ryan is it again when this does go really really deep? Because for me when I play with this, is it really starts to question challenged and then overthrow the tyranny of materialistic appearance and duality, right? Because again, from a materialistic physicalist, a dualistic point of view, I mean, the apps right, there's no way but if you start to realize, hey, wait a second, there's a liminal object that can actually act in this kind of multi Vaillant way, as a bridge between different worldviews. Part of the way I play with this is there really challenges overthrows my view of what matter is, and they fundamentally it's not, it's not what the high priest of Western materialistic science tells me it is. It's actually a manifestation fundamentally of mine. And so let me just toss this in and see how this lands with you because in in the esoteric Tibetan tradition, when they talk about sacred grounds, pilgrimage, pilgrimage places and power, things like the great stupid in Bodhgaya I don't think it's disconnected from that type of phenomena. Where what they say in the Tibetan world, is this is really a little bit tricky for me because on one level, I don't want to de sacralized this by reducing it to this mechanistic explanation. But I do think certain things can be thrown into the mix that can maybe help us expand our views by bringing some explanatory power to what I'm going to say. And that is that in the Buddhist view, at the level of the eighth ground at Bhumi, which is our really high level of realization, one characteristic of that ground is the mind of that meditation master literally starts to mix with so called Natur. Duality is actually literally breaking down the kind of dissociation thing is breaking down, and then the internal is starting to infuse the external enhance. That's why they say if you go to a sacred power spot, you feel it. You walk into the space a shrine or temple or whatever. And it's like, wow, there's something here. Well, where's that something coming from? Where did it come from? Well, one again, again without shrink wrapping it once local explanation is the mind of an awakened being literally impregnate stamps, the so called material pattern reality, and that perfume is then left there for us to then come into that environment and be beneficiaries of that. And so I love this because this to me stretches the whole mind matter. thing, and it's like, hey, wait a second. This thing you know on Well, this is not made of matter. This is made of frozen light. It's made of heart, mind, spirit. And so through the power of a ritual that even embodies the ritual, or imbues the ritual object you're playing with these really magical phenomena. That therefore I think, to me, this is just my riff tend to like really challenge some foundational views of the way I relate to reality periods. So this is what at the deep end of the pool, we can come back for, you know, like how to use this in life, that kind of thing. But since we wandered into this area, when I was reading your blog, it was like, Well, I mean, this I immediately went to esoteric puroland teachings to sacred geometry sacred ground saying this is this is just a micro cosmic iteration of this very profound process that takes place at these more macro cosmic dimensions.

Yes, yeah. I agree. No, and so bringing in so bringing in the concept of sacred sites, what makes a site sacred, you know, what is the recognition of one spot over another and an example that that we see in archaeology the world over is the placement of prehistoric rock art, petroglyphs and pictographs they're not just placed randomly where there happens to be a flat spot. Some places are composed of layers and layers and layers of rock. And images and scratchings and others nearby are left blank, right? We see this in Paleolithic caves from you know, in France and in Spain and in we see this in the Cal in California and in Mexico in Colorado. Oh, you know why? certain spots have more power than others. And it's interesting because they they are connected to but not reduced to natural features. So streams, springs cliffsides. Boundary zones, again, liminal zones in ecological matrices, you know, and so there is a hidden realm to a boundary zone that exists in the dream world or the other world simultaneously with the material component that we can see quote, unquote, in day with our with our rational, you know, dissociative dualistic mind, and in so when we enter these spaces, and can find a way to make space, which is hard, I think in I use a couple of psychological processes to help me move into a sacred space and it involves prayer, as well as things like Eugene gambling, psychological focusing methods of noticing projections and letting them go, you know, sort of Western analogues to mindfulness to get in touch with our intuitive centers, when we do that as we enter a sacred space, and we are more likely to pick up on resonances and anomalous sensations, anomalous perceptions. In that is key. The anomaly is key because that's is the thing where that's the crack in the wall between worlds often, and it's the thing that's so easy that the rational mind can dismiss and get rid of because it doesn't fit a pattern or a system of belief that we already hold, because we're always trying to break things up into pieces and understand how they work. That's just the way that our minds work in this particular era. And so, how do you get back to that space and you get back to that space, by prayer, by community, and by ritual? They by being together and so in so yeah, it's so it's so fascinating and a story that comes to mind for me about liminality that still shocks and surprises me every time I allow myself to think about it is a time when I was working as a field archaeologist. This was like 20 years ago, and we were surveying the pine woods of Alabama. Lower Piedmont Alabama for a road that was going to be proposed to come through and so my job was to go through with a line of folks in in basically traverse this proposed roadway and look for archaeological materials in the soil by digging a hole every 30 meters or so and looking for artifacts. And so anyhow, I was very sleep deprived this particular day. I think I stayed up late the night before. I can't remember the details of that, but I know that I wasn't in my quote unquote, like normal, rational mind. I was a little bit altered from my sleep deprivation. And I was walking alone and the next closest person to me was maybe 100 feet up the hill for me. And we were in this mature pine forest when I suddenly had this image that came on didn't have a tombstone, like a classic Western like almost like wily Coyote. Like cartoonish level, Tombstone. And it was just front and center in my mind's eye, and I, well, I didn't I just it stopped me in my tracks. And so I walked a little bit further in as I was looking and perceiving. That's what I noticed off of my transect but off to the side, the slight depression in the ground, and I went to investigate it, and it turned out to be the depression of an unmarked grave. And so the pine needles that created this little kind of boom, and so it was just a very slight depression that I would not have noticed had I not been essentially jarred into this interesting state of alertness. It was not even on my transect In fact, it was it was off to the side. I called my called My partner over and we investigated we found something like 15 or 16 unmarked graves, and it turned out to be enslaved graveyard from around, you know, 18th, you know, late 1800s, mid 1800s or something like that. And I'm happy to say they didn't build a road there, because they went around it and so that that was preserved, but the liminality of that story, like something came forward with information, and then my mind, interpreted it and provided an image and the image wasn't accurate in a right one to one sense, but it was an accurate enough that the information made sense to me and came through to me and allowed that to happen.

That's Oh my gosh, there's so much to say here. This What a great story, one ray briefing here. In terms of like natural power spots, I live literally a couple of miles not a couple a couple dozen miles from the Continental Divide, which is like the spine right of the country. And I mean, what an interesting coincidence that starting with a great stupa of Dharmakaya, all the way down to Santa Fe, Taos Crestone. There's a whole battery of stupas that some esoteric writers talk about they act as as like spiritual acupuncture points along the spine of the country to help balance and distribute the energy so I love this kind of really out there stuff. The second thing is a lot also love your reference to anomalous experiences because for me, the V anomalous is an intimation of the non dual as is the same as se a synchronicity. Synchronicity is an intimation of the non dual inside is resonating with the outside. That's what makes it synchronous. And my one of the scholars I really appreciate these days, I'm sure you've read Jeffrey Crapo he, he talks often about the stranger it is, the truer it is, the more real it is. And so on one level, what this does is this actually and this is I think what we're doing in our conversation, is we're empowering with what we're talking here. Okay. All right. Well, why should I use this thing? Well, I think what we're doing here is to view it, we're empowering the right view of the depth of the scope of what's involved with this, this thing that can otherwise be just another little whatever we throw into our skill set. It's like, hey, wait a second. This is non trivial. And so again, I'll pause here the other thing that just popped into my mind it didn't when I was reading your book, was this to me all of a sudden now adds a third to what I call my magic induction techniques. This is my languaging so for me the magic induction number one is devotion. Number two is compassion. And now Hey, for the first time, like I have a new magic induction technique, courtesy of Ryan. And so maybe we can talk a little bit more about that the the magician aspect of this how we can really start to just expand this wonderful tool to really add a new really a very profound new dimension of induction technology for lack of a better term, anyway,

yeah, and, by the way, I'm not the first person to make a dream coin or a dream liminal object like there's many more and someone made one in the 80s. And I'm not sure if it was Stephen LaBerge. But it was sort of around Stephen, the Burgess folks and it's like a game token. I've seen a picture of one before it's like a game token and it says, you know, you're dreaming or something like that. And so anyhow, I just I just wanted to state that like this. Again, this is not a new idea. A friend of mine made wristbands that have the phrase, Am I dreaming that he handed out once at a lucid dreaming conference? Elliot Gish is a PhD researcher. I wore that for a year, and I loved it. I loved it because every time I looked at my hand, I would ask myself, Am I dreaming? And so it allowed me to do my, you know, repetitions of reality testing. The critical state theory stuff that Paul Foley came up with, you know, in the 1950s and that Stephen LaBerge really made popular. And so the coin helps with in a very practical sense, with these kind of core lucid dreaming tactics. That's the main one being doing the reality test. And they're doing it in a real way, you know, really actively, actively asking, Am I dreaming and then testing how do I know that I'm not dreaming, right? I think often people forget about that second part. Like if you don't actually do a test of some kind of confirmation, then you're going to do the same cognitive habit in your dream. And I've had that happen millions of times probably where I, where I was like, No, clearly I'm not dreaming and I just kind of go on my merry way and my dream because because of some like erroneous concept, and so so what I love about the coin is is it's just bizarre enough that it you know, works as a liminal object and it uses text because in text as you know, in dreams is shifting, and in waking life, it's not and now, I was talking to Robert moss not too long ago, and he was like, Well, when I you know, when I look at text and dreams, it's super clear. And I can read a paragraph. And so, you know, that's an example of how doesn't work for everyone. Everyone's kind of a little bit of a different cognitive mindset. But the big language here when I get back to this concept that you just were drawing back about the magician, right. I think that the language of alchemy is where we're going. Right. And so the Western tradition that is non dual that moves from this concept that there is psychological processes, and that there's material processes, and together creates a third body. Right, and here's Jeffrey Crapo. Again, I'd love crystals work. So what is the third third body how does that show up in in the way with the way I treat alchemy in the lucid talisman book is very glancing I would say it's, it's not particularly deep. If folks want to see a really wonderful treatment of alchemy as it pertains to lucid dreaming. Melinda Powell is the author she wrote a wonderful book called lucid surrender recently that goes deep into alchemical processes. You should speak to her Andrew. So So but the way that I use alchemy in in the book is to look at just simple ideas of solar and lunar energies and how lucid dreaming can become that third body that place where the lunar and the solar comes together. So the solar essentially being our you know, ordinary sort of rational waking level, ego mind, and then the lunar being the intuitive mind of the dream world. And lucid dreaming being a way that we can direct our awareness while we're in a lunar universe while we're in an intuitive place. And why I think this works is that a lot of especially beginner lucid dreamers are really hung up on the solar and just trying to manipulate objects and make things happen and bucket lists and that kind of thing. That's a lot of fun. But it doesn't appreciate the lunar sensibilities of the dream world, everything that comes that percolates through that has to do with intuitions and emotionality and the body in the way that everything becomes diffuse. And time sort of moves in a different fashion. Right the underworld comes through ancestors come through and an end and devotional figures come through with larger than life otherworldly figures that impart wisdom and terror, I should say, right? So it's sometimes both at once. And so how do we make room for that and that's by moving into lunar practices of being able to surrender into the dream and not try to control things all the time with the rational mind?

Yeah, that's, oh, my gosh, there's so much here, but just a couple of things. Ryan, one is, you know, in the insights are coming just as you're speaking here that I'm starting to really relate to this now as a kind of more of an actual tantric object because there's just other languages. You know, Alchemy in the West, is analogous to Tantra in the east, and we both work with these, instead of transforming lead into gold, you transform poison into medicine, but the same underlying underlying principles are there. And so now to me even further, I see this as a kind of tantric object for several reasons. One is, in Tantra, the female dominates in fact, in very esoteric tantric rituals. The female actually penetrates the male and female is related to two elements here and so even when we go into sleep and classic Dream Yoga, what do you do? You lay down on the right side that is closed off your right nostril that invites what I call bad breath, which is the solar male energy that runs through the right channel. It invites the opening of the left more feminine receptive energy. In Tibetan Buddhism, you want to sleep dream and die in a feminine state, because you're returning to this kind of primordial mother matrix of reality. And so to me this like wait a second, this is also not only is it an alchemical object in this deep regard, but I completely can now see it as a tantric object where it has this feminine Invitational quality seducing you into in the best sense into a more receptive open quality of mine. And then also I want to spend back in and I want you to say a little bit more about what you just closed on, which is super important. This is a very common critique of Dream Yoga. Which I think is often misunderstood. All these Dream Yoga people it's all about controlling, controlling your mind controlling, but what you're saying here, I really want to riff on this a little bit. Yes, on one level, there is something to be said about transforming controlling aspects of the mind but it's also this receptivity, this more feminine accommodations space for the play of the mind. They're really at the highest levels of Dream Yoga, my stage eight, nine. These are the highest stages of Dream Yoga, where you're done with a transformation you're done with, with that kind of even male end of it. And now it's more this kind of receptive you can there we say feminine relationship to the display of the mind. So So yeah, that because Dream Yoga is often in for some extent, lucid dreaming is often criticized, ah, it's all about control. Well, it's controlled by in certain way you're controlling it with space is feminine quality.

Yeah. And I would add that it's about there's sort of a pre trans fallacy. There. lucid dreamer, when they emerge into the dream has to create a sense of power to be able to grapple with the intuitive in the unknown. And so it's almost like one needs that that primacy of power happens first, perhaps in a self protective way. And then once a dreamer realizes I'm, I'm safe here I can exist. In this realm. I can wake up if I need to. Once those sort of primacy needs are met, then one can dissolve that ego and move into this more spaciousness, and in the letting come right of surrender and letting go of these sort of Middle World thoughts and moving into these other spaces. And so I think there's something developmental that's important. I mean, when I was a teen and had nightmares of lucid dreaming, it was very important that the first thing I said to a lucid dream was no because that was creating a boundary of psychic self defense. And so we have to talk about psychic self defense, as you know as as capacity. But yeah, and so, people I think misuse that and in no way is you know, the use of manipulative objects that's done within a Western. I mean, an Eastern perspective, deaths like, undergirded by by compassion, and inner connection with the universe is that the same as the Western ego, trying to extract a piece of information and a manipulation that's done with the idea that none of this is important, not that it's not real, but nothing that I see is actually important. And so there's sort of this hidden nihilism, I think, in the Western version of the world of this isn't real, which is very different than the East and Eastern sensibilities and so yeah, I surrendered to Yun talks about that and some of her some of her work as well about you can't just like throw you back and forth. And so lucid dreaming gets a lot of gets a lot of crap for that in I believe marketing, honestly, because what happens is, is that lucid dreamers as they move into advanced lucid dreaming, they discovered this for themselves, or they get scared and they back off. And so what I like to do, I hope is is that this provides people with some protections, and some, like a roadmap to move forward into where it's safe to open up and go to this third body to disk space where we can interact in a way with the anomalous and the unknown and and see what comes and learn rather than go into the dream to take.

There's so much here. So to what extent to what extent when we open ourselves up to these to these agencies, and again, just this starts to challenge and even break down the dualistic boundary borders to what extent are these agencies in fact agentic? To what extent can we relate to them as, as as guides, peeps, external forces, whatever, because you talked about in your book about harnessing act of uniform universal forces through transference. So maybe talk to us a little bit about this really delicate dance between okay, I'm, I'm on level. I'll see it when I believe it. So there's this internal kind of placebo wasn't the right idea, but there's this mind effect, right, I'm imbuing this with my ego with my power in my mind and then it has a kind of correlative power based on what I imbue it with my belief if I believe in it, I'll see it. But at the same time, what I also love about this, there is some quote unquote external agency being invited here. There are powers that are not part of our event horizon that are actually invited in and in fact, on one level you're talking about earlier, this can be used to close the door to less than benevolent, some even malevolent forces that can come in. And so talk to us a little bit about about that, again, returning to the non dual thing. And then I also wanted to just catch you mentioned a couple of things that that really could warrant a little bit of fleshing out. The developmental issue around this. You talked briefly about pre trans. Ken Wilber is wonderful exploration of confusing and conflating a trans person with a pre personal phenomena. And also, I think a really important thing that maybe warrants a little bit more fleshing out the developmental issues that are being suggested or intimated here. So hopefully, that's two big things. One is just if you got to the understanding between internal and external, so called agency, where are these you know, are we how much of this are we inviting from the outside? Quote, unquote? How much have we are we actually invoking from deeper dimensions of our speaking as an archaeologist of consciousness, from the deeper stratified dimensions of our own being? How much of that is actually coming up from within? Or in fact, you know, both.

It's such great questions. Well, Robert Wagner does a really wonderful job I think of laying out a developmental model for lucid dreaming that I think works for most folks who were raised in a Euro American, you know, mind frame, in his in his classic book, on a gateway to the inner what is the gateway to the

inner soul? Heavy on my bookshelf around the corner? Yeah,

yeah. Anyway, Lucy, his 2009 beautiful, wonderful book. And he speaks about sort of this first is all about me, me, me. And then in then

the inner self, I think, is that

what it? Yes, that's it. Thank you. Yeah. Gateway to the inner self. And so he kind of moves through kind of a five stage developmental process that I think is really resonant with what folks move through with a bias towards an interest in transpersonal information gathering so So Robert, you know, his his really his passion is about speaking to the voice behind the dream. And sort of that abstract way of thinking that can come out of ordinary lucid dreams and sort of move into these sort of more transpersonal realms where we're in. We're almost like in the mathematics of the universe. The Matrix and, and invoices come through and download spiritual downloads come through and it's it feels informational. And then there's this other sort of movement that that I've noticed, which is more tantric in nature, where lucid dreamers sort of move into a realm of soul that seems to be more connected to emotional intelligence and healing states of consciousness. It's more it's more shamanic than it is meditative in a really, I've just added dualisms to our conversation here. But But But both of these ways of knowing are valid, and it come in come through kind of our own temperaments. And so we're not all on the same developmental platform. I would say, I think that there's a, you know, a destiny, perhaps to the way that we move into spaces and I love to ask people what were your first lucid dreams like? Because sometimes those first lucid dream show a taste of the trajectory ahead. You know, the first taste kind of experience that you hear about with enlightenment can really be seen in lucid dreaming as well. People have this really impactful experience, and then they get into lucid dreaming and it loses there's a deflation that occurs and sort of the middle middle stages and people get bored, and they run into resistances. And things don't work anymore, right. I really love working with people who are in the stage because because when they make that turn again it can be it's just like the floodgates open back up to to new experiences in new levels of understanding. But when it comes to agency, I mean, I would say question mark, question mark. I don't have a framework that really, that I like, when it comes to what comes through and what is this but I do think that it's important that folks understand their own belief systems as they move into these landscapes. Otherwise, it's gonna bite you on your ass. So many times and this is true for me, you know, the way I think about things in the waking world is very different than in the dreaming world because my ego is different. I'm not the same person. Right? And so nothing is real is true, including myself, right? And so and we see these different constellations of ego occurring in the dream. What is available to consciousness what is hidden what isn't shadow like this shifts? Like we're just like we're floating around. Jeremy Taylor used to use the notion of, of the ego being in a blanket and we're like a sock puppet. You know? And we just like the ego takes a certain shape and it does a certain thing for a while and then it comes back down and it shows up in another way. Or sock puppet. So So what is what is that all about? And I don't know, but I know that I have had a much better time with these experiences. Once I learned some sort of ground rules for my own boundaries, like what sort of dream interactions I will tolerate in which ones I decide is enough, and and that's difficult because it's not a hard and fast rule. It's actually felt in the moment. And so it's not about what it's about feelings and intuition. And so when when these self helpers come are these these these, larger than life figures? My inclination, and I recommend this for everyone is to treat them with respect, and to assume that they are quote unquote real. Because the thought this isn't real, this is just a dream is toxic. It's a toxic thought and it devalues. Everything. And maybe it's offensive to the energies coming through. And so I at least grant agency at a bare minimum of of a production level interaction in relationship and so, in this is the cornerstone of, I think, any kind of compassionate worldview.

Let me share a story with you around this that I just was just sent to me somewhat recently that really had an amazing impact. Because over the years, you'll see how why it's had such an impact. This is worth talking about, because this whole riff is really impactful. I've had many, many dreams, some of the most impactful dreams of my life over the last several decades of really my route teacher, the radical iconoclastic. Trungpa Rinpoche, right, the Crazy Wisdom guy, and I've had so many dreams with him. And so a person shared with me a really beautiful, intimate story, where Rene was with her, and basically during the course of a conversation, and this just floored me. She was talking about oh, you know, I had this dream of you the other night bla bla bla, in Rinpoche turned to her very directly with a really, like, very shocking to see, you know, that was me. And she went, Yeah, yeah. All right, nice. I know. Then he turned back and said, No, that was me. And then say all the same thing like, Thank you for sharing that seems like and then finally, the third time you turn around, we're like almost raffle energy because No, that was me. And so to me, I don't know maybe it was just I was ready to really hear that. But it was like, That, to me is a definitive as I need to hear of the kind of porosity you know, the the Mighty Joe Campbell Rinpoche, the other another major teacher says, one of the things that characterizes the dream arena is the veils are thinner, and you're more porous and more translucent, both to yourself and and to the other. And that's where protectors and guardians and that whole thing we maybe we can come back to that can really come into play. But I've always wondered because like you were so similar during the day orange, you know that in the clear graves developmental schema, rational logic kind of guy, science kind of guy. You know, that's the way I roll. But then I dance between these two worlds in the dream world. Exactly. In the dream world. It's a totally different game and that little orange thing goes into teal or whatever. It's completely different do and so I guess between those two worlds, I mean, half these books are science books. The other half are all these kind of mystical out there kind of things. So I wanted to throw this out for our listeners because to me that that proclamation and what you're saying here, treat these characters with respect, treat them as if they were real. Well, here's the way I relate to them. There is real or unreal as we are. And in fact, I would say they're almost more real, really, because when you're lucid to it, I think you're more in contact with reality in the lucid dream arena. So I want to just put an exclamation point on that for those people who wonder, Oh, you know, the majority of thing Oh, it's just a dream is just a dream character, character and so forth. For remember JD calm was such an authority almost Wrath and saying, No, that was me. It just hit me smacking him in the face. Is that okay? I got it. I finally understand. Thank you. So I wanted to throw that out because that was a big deal. For me to get this story.

Oh, yeah. Thank you for telling that story. It really, it sounds it sounds like a like an aha moment of the of the of the of the big kind. Yeah, you know, and I've had experiences that, that I still question to this day, how could that have been true that happen? My wife tells me you're the most psychic person I know. And in Meanwhile, I'm like walking around like, stop. I don't even like that word. So, like, you know, we have to we have to relax into our multi dimensional self. We have to understand that we that we are bigger than than we allow ourselves to be. And so that's right. And that's what lucid dreaming is about is it's about taking off the red the orange sweater and wearing a different cloak. Yeah.

I think was was a was worth I contain multitudes. Right? Yeah.

Right. We do. We absolutely do. And, of course, we bring our dualisms into the dream as well. But But even then they're tested and in playfully by the dream and in The Guardian. Sometimes our are simply our own inability to stay in the dream for long enough to get the message. And so sometimes, you know, what I say to folks is is that well, this is an invitation to practice more to either to develop a longer awareness set to do more either concentrated practices or nature awareness settings. How you know, how can we support the inattentive mind and the dream? If that's the roadblock, like Oh, I get to have a meeting with somebody, but then it's just mumbles and then and then I fall out of the dream. And it's like, well, so the Guardian, their their wrote is, is is our own, sort of like, Oh, we're just not ready for this particular initiation. And I would say in a loose way that that's a failed initiation, but in the sense that we always have more encounters, we always have more abilities. It's just one more moment in time, so not to take it too seriously. There's got to be that playfulness with dreams. And if you lose the playfulness, I think all of us lost.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that and that, of course can be sometimes a consequence of the using the meditative maximum. Not too tight, not too loose. You talked about beautifully in his book. And when I read that, it was like, it actually helped me. Because sometimes you're like, I have to go into a lab. They're going to put all these expensive crap on me. I've got to produce a lucid dream. I mean, you don't think that's going to make me tight? And actually just one of the beautiful things about saving the bears in his trainings in Hawaii, right? I mean, they're incredibly relaxed environments. And so to me, this what you're talking about here is that if we're if we're too tight, and I tend to fall into that camp, that's what makes this this space very interesting. It doesn't abide by classic approaches. Yes, we need intentionality. Yes, we need convention can conviction, some discipline, otherwise it's not a practice. But again, if we bring our daytime strategies into into nocturnal worlds, some of that stuff has to be left behind because it doesn't really work. On one level, it's like, in fact, after I read that in your book, I said, Wait, wait, wait, I'm trying too hard. I relaxed. Hey, guess what that night, big lucid dream. And so see more, a little bit more about that. And also, as is we started into kind of ground level we rocketed up to the, to the high altitude approaches. Maybe we can come back down for our listeners, and talk a little bit more about how to how to use the talisman because you talked briefly we didn't really circumambulate back or circle back to it, how to use it for state checks, how to continue to engage in it in addition to some of the things we've already talked about, because I want to join heaven and earth here. Mainly people would like what other ways can I use this because maybe now we've imbued it with a little bit of view and power of how deep this object is level object can actually be good. It may be bring it back to Earth and say, Hey, we got this beautiful thing, a little bit more about other matters of engagement employment, so to speak, and what more people can do with it.

Good. Yeah. So um, so this question about relaxation or working too hard. That was a big aha moment that I had when I had to produce a bunch of lucid dreams for writing my master's thesis, because I was like, I'm going to do this really cool induction process and to do so I had, you know, set that I needed to have 10 lucid dreams within basically a quarter and I was realizing I wasn't having enough lucid dreams very quickly. And there was that I was remembering my protocol and I was getting into get anxious socially anxious. My advisors you know, questioning me where's your draft all these kinds of things are happening. And in so what happened was winter break is what happened. And I relaxed all of my intentionality practices. I really just took time off. And I immediately began having lucid dream after a lucid dream over winter break and, and I thought it was ironic I was like, This is so ironic. And then I thought about it more as like no, this is something deeper in so what came out of that was the way that I've been teaching lucid dreaming for the last 10 years or so which is the immersion method, which is to is to immerse yourself in lucid dreaming and lucid living for a set amount of time with a strong boundary and then to stop the practices and see what comes and just relax and what I find is is that that mixing really works for creativity. And it really works for folks who specially who are wound too tight, and their lucid dreams come when their time is off. Others come when they're really doing the practices. And I think that there's other things going on, as well as such as dream delay and other kinds of physiological things that are more about brain than it is. I don't know, but all I know is that it works and it's resonant with what we know about dream incubation societies around the world, right you know, like the Cyclopean tradition, the ancient Greek dream sanctuaries, in which folks were invited to a temple to dream but only after they essentially had been on campus long enough where the priests were like, Okay, now you can come in and so they had to really relax and detox and eat only hope. I mean, very limited diet, as well. As just mixing up there sleep with prayer, lots of prayer, and then they were invited into the inner sanctuary, to to request to dream of a scorpion to a sloppiest to to have a you know, a powerful healing dream. And so taking those elements, and bringing them into modern life, like not all of us can always go and be on retreat. So how do you make that into waking life? And you do this by creating your own lucid sanctuary, in confinement, and then letting things go and notice what happens take the data and then mix up your practices because we burn out otherwise we just simply burn out. Lucid burnout is a major problem, I think and lucid education and people get very frustrated and the frustration becomes another roadblock from success and then all it just it just spirals and spirals and we lose focus. So relaxation is key. And so that's why I say for the talisman, you know to take some time and put it away when you're not using it actively and let it recharge in it you know is the talisman recharging Are you know, recharging doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The thing is, is that the practice is what matters. And then to bring it back when you're really ready for this time to Oh, I'm gonna really be able to spend some time going to sleep mindfully and I have enough energy that I can disturb my sleep in the middle of the night. I'm ready for that and I have time to write my dreams down either in the morning or soon after. Right right because it takes there's there's some it's not just intentionality, right there's we have to like make space for this in our lives to do these practices. So that the talisman helps with that because it makes a ritual of am I doing lucid practices or not it helps us see are we on or not? And then the reality check. The reality check is sort of the major way that the talisman was first conceived is just as it's a very convenient token to hold in your pocket. And every time you come in contact with it. You say oh, oh, Am I dreaming? And then take a moment. How do you how do you know you're not dreaming? Right? What kind of reality check do you use? My personal one is holding my nose because I can breathe while I'm holding my nose if I'm dreaming and I can't if I'm awake and that particular one has not failed me whereas most other ones have at some time or another or you know if you're if you you know just depends on your on your own kind of mind. How How is text in your dream is it very ephemeral because looking at the text of the talisman and flipping it over, taking a moment putting your attention somewhere else, bringing it back, looking back, your working memory is still long enough engaged to know what it should say. Right? Even in the dream the working memory is still long enough to know what it used to say. In of course for most it changes. And so that's one of those things. It's got this kind of cool, bizarre esoteric feel to it that allows that liminality have come in and then this was the surprise is once we started working with the talisman, it began sort of manifesting itself spontaneously in the dream itself, which I did not necessarily know would happen, but once it did, I realized that the talisman itself works as a dream sign. And so if you're really spending some time looking at it every day, the talisman will show up in your dream when one dream I was in the dream and then suddenly the talisman just comes into my consciousness on a string as if someone's bobbing it in front of me and I'm like what the heck is going on here? And then I realized I was dreaming because of that. So so so that's the dream side aspect of it. But which is I think kind of secondary but but so really it is about noticing awareness and groundedness and for me, you know I am an anxious temperament. And so the talisman is what happens like I'm in line getting coffee, and I put my hands in my pocket because I'm a little socially anxious. I come in contact with the Towson and I was like oh, and I let myself breathe. In a ground and I asked myself if I'm dreaming I just sort of write I just kind of come down a notch and become more aware in a comfortable sense of my surroundings. And so it has a nice kind of effect in that way as well of just as a grounding temperament. Almost the way that it's that AAA Alcoholics Anonymous uses tokens, as well. It's got this really nice way of of grounding in the moment so we don't get lost in memory or desire. So those are some of the practices.

So this is really great stuff say a little bit more because this is one of the questions I have for you. Is how say more about how it insects into dream. So you know movie Inception, you're talking about there in your book. This is a phrase that that are wording that may not be familiar to people. But you're intimating that so how the talisman see maybe a little bit more about how outside of being a dream sign other ways that it can incept into a dream.

Right so there's a spontaneous nature as a liminal object that we've imbued with intentionality. That that will show up and eventually can become an anchor. It can become we're what we're doing is essentially we're anchoring our intentionality, our desire, our question to the coin itself, and so as a liminal object that coin becomes what you could call an alchemical envelope, it becomes in itself a holograph of all of those, all those intentionality keys. And so when the coin is seen in the dream, it's like an imparting of information and intention. That comes with it. And so it holds that all of it in this really cool, magical way. That is beyond words, right? And so, we often you know, and maybe this is because of laboratory laboratory definitions, we say in lucid dreaming you have to say or think I know, I'm dreaming, but of course, sometimes that doesn't really happen. We just have an inner knowing. And so sometimes the talisman does that it shows up, and there's this inner knowing I'm in a magical place. And and I can go about, you know, living as a magical beam now in so it's almost like it's an invitation to a different to being a different person being a different selfhood

fantastic, if we use the term carefully. reified intention, right. reification is such a such a tricky term, right? Because it's, if there's an original sin in Buddhism reification born of ignorance would be it right? And the path to awakening is a path to wisdom or de reification but I think if we use the word reification properly, what I mean by this on a deeper level, one of the ways that work with with lucid dreaming it really elevate your level is the more I quote unquote reified my dream. The more by immediate implication, Id reify my waking state until I see the economists nature of both. And so I think that's very interesting. And I throw this into the mix is because we've used this term, you've used this term over and over intentionality. And I want to just share with you I did a Dream Yoga brief training with Sonia Rinpoche who's an amazing master in the only induction method he gave by Bernard one the only induction he met method was intentionality. And I think this is really important because people think, yes, it's great. You and I were geeks, all the techniques, all the gadgets, the Galantamine the goggles, you name it, we got it. We've use it. I'm not dissing that at all. But on one level you have a mind you have intention, on what level and so your image ages stamped it, he goes, that's all you need. And so in a really beautiful way, anchoring your intention qualified term reifying it into the into the talisman all of a sudden it's like, hey, now this thing has a little bit more traction for me because I believe in the world of matter, whatever. But I just wanted to throw that out there because I think this is this is no small thing. On one level, the power of intentionality alone, literally to stretch towards right that quality of words, and into acting as intentionality in itself acts as that liminal psychic motivator that bridge from the

bridge. Yes, that's it. That's it. It's a bridge right when you look at phenomenology, which is where my training is in intentionality isn't just a desire or the or a, you know, perspective memory of a task. It's a relationship. It's the moving forward of into the world. It's the tether that we interact with all that is not available to my inner awareness. And so intentionality once we harness it and understand it and know what we want, and that's tough, that's that's a tough one. And so I teach intentionality. First to I spent a lot of time with folks to, to Why do you want to lucid dream rather than you want to have a lucid dream? Why, what do you try and what is the draw? What is the picture of being lucid that is pushing you forward? And there's no right answer here because folks have different motivations. And like I say, sometimes, my framework now is some folks kind of move towards these upper world intentionality is that have to do more about abstraction and mindfulness and transcendence and others have intentionality that are more of of the lower world that are about transforming emotionality into psycho spiritual powers, you know, a path to transformation. And so, even just knowing you know, super easy sense, am I kind of moving towards upper world intentions or lower world intentions that can be really helpful in, in motivation. In we all have to serve our own kind of you know, essence or tether to the dream where we gravitate in so we can, we can really look at our past dreams. Non lucid dreams included my gosh, really look at the non lucid dreams and see now how do I move in a dream and who am I and and what what moves me? Right What's that? That's the question what moves me because once we're on board, the dream is on board with us.

Yeah, boy, just to wrap this up just a tiny bit more is when you bring this power of intentionality movement. Now you're talking about karma. I mean, that's what karma is karma. Literally Tibetan lay literally means to act to move. What is it that creates karma even in a dream and this is the great gift, you know, the both of the warning and the great gift of lucidity and dream yoga practices. Whenever intention is involved, even in a dream. Karma is created, right? And so that's either good or bad news depending on how you relate to that intentionality. So once again, to empower that's kind of the theme for today. To empower the power of intentionality. This is a is a fundamental I mean, basically, intention is almost synonymous with karma. Whether it's mental, physical, verbal mullendore, reified. He's interested in physical intention is that which moves us and so in this case, we're moving from the waking state into the dreaming state bringing this lucidity or awareness whether so this is again, it's like well, this stuff is you know, this is fractal like there's a lot of depth here, right.

So yeah, yeah, it's something that you know, the early lucid dreaming researchers were really looking at if you'd look at Patricia Garfield's early work, she used an intention based model that allowed her to move into his lucid spaces. Now talking this is like her book. Oh, gosh, the way of the dream mandala was written in the 70s if you look at Stephen Williams, the book is the NOI dreamwork handbook. He's talking about intentionality in a way that's about choice. And in in then I think what happened to the scientific process of lucidity being reified, or to being verified is is that the model that came cognitive only and we sort of lost some of these these powers. These, these very ancient powers, and they're still there. We haven't lost them. We just have to remember them and so it starts, what it really is about in a big way is just these old powers are present. And not only that, but we're just neuro biologically or neuro somatically aligned with them. They're just right there. It's it's it's easy to move with them. Right. It's easy and that's why some little objects work and some don't, you know, it's why plastic I don't make you know, Towson was not made of plastic for a reason.

Yeah, you know, the Buddhist tradition often mentioned earlier, often talks about meteoric iron is being that which really carries the greatest kind of elemental impact, right. That's also really interesting. The other thing that came to mind, this is really amazing. We haven't really lost the old powers. We've just forgotten them. This is an astounding statement. The Roger region, one sentence as a seminal statement, for me is the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. Remembering re literally remembering, rejoining recollecting, I mean, it's so it's so foundational, the word in Tibetan for mindfulness meditation, Grandpa means to remember to recollect. So this stuff is like whoa, talking about different levels of applicability and depth here. So these these, these practices really are designed on one level to jog our memory to wake us up to these these latent powers. That basically if we make ourselves more available to them, largely by what believing in them right, realizing that there are available there right here right now we just have to open to them using magic transitional object. That's the other thing this is this is like a transitional object and the winner Qadian way relating to weeks right that's right way to talk about the using it as a transitional object from one

standard. This people will say, Well, this is just this is just a placebo and I'm like, That's right. Let us harness the endogenous healing response. Let us let us harness this. It doesn't matter if we believe it or not. It works. If we allow room for it to work,

and the placebo effect no SIBO effect. I mean, what is that that's a belief effect. It's a mind effect. And so then that, again, comes back into play, you know, just empowering the power of our own minds. So So God, there's so much say this, and I'm so jazzed here. A couple more things here that I really want you to riff on. And maybe we'll have to do this again. Right. There's so much here. This is like a short little book. I said I geez, I hope we have enough to talk about. It's like, we can just start a series here. Talk to us a little bit about what you come on in the latter part of the book about these talismans is apotropaic amulets, if I will when or when is that a big hassle term? So after after tropic amulets, this is actually ties a little bit to what we talked about earlier part of the conversation. And again, another way to use these things, we're using them and so many, this is a you know, it's a it's a multi valence object, right. There's so many different ways we can use it just like the dream itself. So here's another dimension using this to work with protection and fear.

Yeah, so So apotropaic is to move against fear and so as portrayed portrayed objects and if stumbles on my mouth, but it means objects that are imbued to protect. And so this in the archaeological context is what when we were speaking earlier about, say crosses and horse skulls buried under the house they protect and they help people basically have a realm of psychic protection against the malevolent forces. This is how they're used. And we see them in archaeological contexts all over the world. They're then they're often placed in places if liminality in between zones of activity in between zones have been inside, outside write up and there's there's, there's always there's some kind of spatial liminality to them. A talisman works in this way. To protect against nightmares, and that's what amulets have been used for. For years. You know, this is probably their number one use around the world today in all kinds of religious contexts. And people of course, will carry, you know the object on them or they'll sleep with it next to them while they sleep with it under their pillow to prevent nightmares. And it is a Yeah, it is a talisman and that's in that sense. And so I stumbled upon some really cool Kabbalistic talismans that were used in the 19th century. There are maic that they talk about how they are consecrated by the rabbi, and essentially, they're these wonderful plates that were inscribed with prayer. And essentially, prayers have banishment against certain kinds of quote unquote demons and they were in we also see this with Lilin demons and in an earlier errors, you know, the demons of Lilith. In these were known as entities that came to harass sleepers at night or when they are sleeping alone. Or so they can come during the day during naps and they can come at night, and they oppress dreamers they sit on their chest, they sexually molest them. They steal their energy, right in so all what we would call today, the complex of sleep paralysis and hypnagogic visions is where is what these these things were warding off of, and they are made of and then we see amulets made of silver that use this we see these are may 13, to 15th century plates, is it's wonderful. All these different traditions that use this process and so the talisman can be used in that sense too. If one has a fear, that needs some grounding in and again does it work, does it is it a placebo, it doesn't really matter. It's about creating ritual. It's about creating feelings of safety and protection, and using prayer in psychic self defense actively. And I think this is important because as Western Dreamers We have our day world consciousness and we don't we don't believe in ghosts, and then we go to sleep. And we have this experience where something slightly unusual happens and we freak out because it doesn't fit the paradigm and we move into fear immediately. Because because we're using the wrong paradigm. In the dream world. spirits exist. entities exist, otherworldly creatures exist. So we need to be able to work with them, protect ourselves if need be, and you know, essentially build beneficial relationships. And that's that's something that I just love to bring up. Because it doesn't matter if you don't believe it in waking life. If if you if you're losing sleep at night because of sleep paralysis, that's a sign that there's a miss jointed paradigm.

This is Oh my gosh, I have so much to talk about here. I mean, one, one, just a couple of things. One is that we've been talking a little bit about about the developmental thing. And using colors which some people here may not be familiar with. This is a classical, Clary graves, Carl Beck and others, a way to talk about development using particular color things and so just to say one brief thing here, and again, see for a whole another conversation is that in a very real way, and I hadn't thought about this before, during the waking state, we're principally again, first here we're basically dealing with developmental levels that that we embody. During our waking reality, and then perhaps open question when we enter the dream arena where the veils are thinner, perhaps a greater or lesser degrees were invited and lucidity then brings a conscious relationship to this jump into second tier. And so maybe this is part of what can actually be happening. In a developmental way that I actually haven't really thought of before. So that's another gift from you today. But here's something interesting that came to mind. Ryan, is it in the Tibetan tradition and others as well? And I do this every day in my three year retreat, we did an hour and 20 minutes of this every single day. We do we do incredibly elaborate ritual protector practices. In fact, in my reach, meet sadhanas at less than hour, 20 minutes every night at dusk. It was just a liminal dimension, you're going from the waking space. That's when people often notice difference like hey, I'm a little bit unsettled, psychically, whatever, and a lot of people start their evening cocktails then is a way to work with that. But it's very interesting that the protector principle is another way to as a multi Vaillant object that we can work with the talisman at a very deep level. I also flip a flipped on look at that. And not only can I protect against nightmares, but I think the talisman at a deeper level can protect against nightmare principle, which again is what the fundamental nightmare is is reification Yes, the monstrous scary the monster is scary, but it's only scary. If you take it to be real. It's a primordial mistake, and so on and kind of more. Entry level isn't the right word, but I'll use it. The talisman can work at that level, but you can put it in your pocket, imbue it with this mnemonic it's kind of an age to remember that this is a spiritual practice is remembrance. That every time you relate to a touch it it can protect you against reification by basically being it say every time you touch it recite. This is a dream. And so this ties and then to the practice of illusory form. Yeah, so that's another fantasy thing. You touch it. ultimate nightmare. Nightmare principle reification. You hold on to it. pneumonic every time I every time I touch this thing. prospective memory comes in, right. I'm going to remember to say every time I see it, touch it. This is a dream and so there you're now you're really protecting against nightmares because you're protecting against reification. So it's like dude, in this last hour and a half, you've completely imbued my relationship to this way that it's like this whole thing that somewhat metaphoric of minute

that means you can now put it on yourself.

Exactly. Or make it make it more available to my audience, right? Because this this is really it's this is my new number three magic induction methods. So I'm wondering if you have any questions, or I should say comments about that. And then as we start to wrap up because I want to be sensitive to your time. I wanted to say a little bit more about what you talked about in the book. We talked about how to activate it. And then to a certain extent, you've already said this but maybe it's we're starting to close up just to reinstate or if there's anything additional you want to say how to keep it active. So we've been we've been peppering this but maybe are there other things about again, I want to leave people with Whoa, I had no idea I could use this in so many wonderful magical ways. So any other things come to mind along those lines.

Yeah, so I spoke about how you can put the talisman away when you're not using it actively. Or you can just you know I have one of my talismans that I actually do use as a as a book wait it holds the pages down as I'm reading the opposite page and that was not activated. Right and so it I don't use it actively. I use it as as a book way. What you don't want to do is mix those two worlds and essentially have a de sacralized relationship during the day with a talisman and then expect it to have powers when you put it under your pillow at night. And so so it's about respecting Yeah, the the category of use for the queen, and in what happens and this is true for me and I've heard from many other people as of course that you know, there's an excitement that first about using it. Andrew, your experience of having a lucid dream, sort of the first night is not unusual. People have a lot of excitement at first and there's just this a lot of power to that. And then what tends to happen is that people you know, lose that excitement, and maybe stop doing the practices and then it doesn't work anymore. And so I just say, Well, look, this is the time to put it away. And so notice that notice when that's happening and and then tie it back to your practices. If we try to lucid dream all the time. We can get burned out. That doesn't mean that we can't be 24/7 trying to become more lucid people or that mindfulness can only be done in spirits and Spats it does that's not what it means. But But these induction practices especially can be something that if it becomes too, it becomes it can become cognitively domesticated just like anything else. I'll put it that way. We just cognitively domesticate ourselves and it can become a routine. And so protect against that about using it seasonally and maybe you know this thing you're saying about liminality as approaching a time right so dusk in spirits and it but also what about you know the sidereal the calendar like the liminal zones of the calendar, you know, looking at you know, we've got the eight the eight quarter days, every six weeks. These are the moments between time from a Pagan Perspective where energies are high where the boundaries reduce where the veil is thin and so like they really details and it can be incorporated into rituals like that as well. Where you can charge the talisman with a full moon, for instance. Right and you can charge a talisman at the summer solstice, put it out on your table with your other objects and if you have stones, or other kinds of dream catchers that you use, collect them recharge them, you know, because we're doing prayer at that time, or we're doing practices or remembrance remembrance, which is I think, a big meta theme of today's talk. Remembering the old ways but remembering our connection to these deeper ways of being and that we can access them. So yeah, so the liminality works around in that way too.

Beautiful. And speak briefly about the other iterations of it. It comes in as a as a as an amulet and you have other ways right? My own right so

so the way I I've been using the turbot Knology is that the coin I call it a talisman and then the necklace version, I call it ambulant or a pendant depending on because there's a couple of different designs. One of the designs is more esoteric than the other. You know, the relic the relic has got this sort of some people think it's creepy. I don't think it's creepy, but it's got the it's got the cosmic tree and the moon and the eye on it. It's kind of more of a Celtic vibe. So some people are attracted to this one more than than the classic talisman and but the senses if you've got it on it on your person like this, it works like an amulet but it's also a conversation piece right? And so someone be like, Oh, that's a cool necklace. Make oh yeah, this is this is how I remember that. I'm lucid dreaming. What's lucid dreaming? Oh, so right and then you can just and this is anytime we first we talk about dreams. We're we're creating more connections, more tethers to that other world. And we're waking up the world along with us.

That's really great. And so oh my gosh, with that in mind before I forget we are going to post a link to how people can order this from you. Is there anything you want to say about that in terms of accessibility availability for these talismans?

Yeah, so the site is lucid talisman.com and you can buy my book there as well and you can buy the book with a talisman if you buy them together. You save some money basically because the way that they bundled together and so I encourage people to buy the book with the talisman. If you buy the book, you can buy the book and not buy Towson and then you can just use your own liminal object right and so you can use your own cross or your own special token and do these practices as well. And so it's not the book is geared towards the talisman. But it's also open enough that's really for anyone to just kind of re stoke that that passion for liminal objects in general. Yeah, so So yeah, everything is available there in at Lucid talisman.com. And then

is there any question that that you wish I would have asked any topic that we haven't covered that's specifically related to there's so many tangential topics that are so interesting, but any other particular last words around the talisman that you might want to share with us?

You know, I can't think of anything right now. And I love that I feel like this conversation was really balanced. You know, often people see my work or interested in my work with lucid nightmares because of the research that I've done in that area. And it's it's nice to be able to talk about the positivity and the expansiveness about lucid dreaming. So I appreciate how balanced this conversation has been in that regard.

Thanks for sharing that. And as again, as we start to wrap it up, what what's your current passion? What are you currently researching or working on? What How can my audience interrelate with you and support what you're doing? Tell us a little bit about what you're up to now.

Yeah, so so so the talisman is kind of like a side hustle that what I'm really up to these days is teaching in I'm getting back into teaching about dreams. I teach on the graduate level for a couple of universities, you know, an adjunct style, but I also have kind of ramped up my my own online academy dream studies Academy. Which I started, I think in 2016, or 2015 was the first time that I started teaching classes on lucid dreaming. And so I've been teaching lucid dreaming, and I've been teaching this new class on the archetypes of lucid dreaming that talks about really moves into detail about some of the things we've been talking here today about lower world intentions and upper world intentions, as well as solar and lunar consciousness because archetypes formed from sort of when you put those two systems together, and so I've really been geeking out with a class on what are these lucid archetypes and how can we get to know these different, you know, egoic garbs as I say that and what is the possibilities access there? So my website is dream studies.org And that's where I have my blog, my research blog, and, and, you know, I have a free ebook there as well called enhance your dream life that folks can download to get a taste for some like really so Elementary, I say I call it dream studies. 101.

Ryan, this has just been so rich, I can't tell you really, from this tiny little book that I said, you know, whatever it's like completely drew me in to the depth and the scope of this conversation has been a delightful way to be reintroduced to your work and your contributions to this world. And so, on behalf of my community, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to hang with us. I for one have learned a heck of a lot. So big bow gratitude, and let's do it again.

Yeah, thanks for having me. This has been this has been a blast. Take care my friend

Ryan dude, wish I could give me a big hug.