[18] Navigating Physical and Mental Obstacles while Lucid Dreaming

9:10PM Feb 10, 2025

Speakers:

Katie Love

Keywords:

Lucid dreaming

physical obstacles

mental obstacles

somatic practices

mindfulness

sleep hygiene

temperature

light

sound

sleeping partners

sensations

feelings

grasping

aversion

meditation.

All right, so the first question I had my first lucid dream in the past month, two out of 19 people said yes, awesome. We'd love to hear from you, as buddy said. And then 16 out of 19 people said no. And then two out of 19 people said, unsure. So if you're unsure, we invite you during the Q and A to share your experience of your dream, and we can help you decide whether it was a lucid dream or not. It can be fun to kind of like suss that out together. The second question, I had at least one lucid dream in the past month, 11 out of 21 people said, Yes, amazing. That's great. Seven out of 21 people said no. And then four out of 21 people said, unsure. Third question, I engage somatic practices to cultivate lucid dreaming. 12 out of 20 people said, Yes, awesome. One person said no. And then seven out of 20 people said, unsure. Well, you'll get to know a little bit more about somatic practices today, all right. And then one more Bodhi. One more. This time, the last one I practice mindfulness to cultivate lucid dreaming, 16 out of 17 people said yes, and then one out of 17 people said no, and then zero out of 17 said unsure.

Oh, wow. Right. Thank you, Chelsea, that is awesome. Everyone. You guys are doing great. We're we're all in this together. And thank you so much for participating in that poll. It just kind of really helps us see how's it going with everyone and and it just just great. So thank you. So we'll hand it over to Katie.

Thank you Chelsea and Bodie and thank you everyone for being here. It's nice to see some familiar faces and some new faces here. Our focus for today is on navigating physical and mental obstacles to lucid dreaming. So often in this group, we discuss lucid dreaming induction techniques and practices which is incredibly valuable in cultivating lucid dreaming, but equally valuable is being able to notice where our blind spots are or what obstacles might be arising in our path to greater lucidity. So we like to do at least one or two sessions on this each year, and this is going to be our focus for today, focusing on physical and mental obstacles. Of course, obstacles vary depending on who you are and what your current life situation is. Something that might be an obstacle for me may not be one for you. So as we go through this process, it's great to be in a state of self awareness and self reflectiveness as to which obstacles are most alive in your practice and in your experience. So I'm going to be going into the physical side of things. And then I'll be guiding us in a somatic practice as a way of bringing greater awareness to our bodies and what might show up as an obstacle on that level. And then Chelsea is going to be guiding us in the mental obstacles and also creating and guiding a practice around mindfulness that will help deepen our awareness of potential mind obstacles, great, so starting with physical obstacles, and I'm going to begin talking about our physical environment in which we are sleeping and dreaming. And this is actually an overlap between sleep hygiene and lucid dreaming, but there are some nuances here that I want to dive into as a way of understanding how we can really cultivate and fine tune our environments to support lucidity. Ultimately, we are aiming to be able to be lucid in any environment, and to not be reliant on having specific environmental conditions to become lucid. However, while we're cultivating greater lucidity, and while we're in the process of growing in our lucid dreaming practice, having some environmental conditions in place. That optimize our lucidity can be incredibly beneficial to the process. So first temperature, scientific studies have shown that the ideal sleeping temperature to cultivate good sleep is 66 degrees, and this could vary slightly depending on your particular body type. Some will like it a bit cooler, some will like it a bit warmer. But having an ideal sleeping temperature is really supportive to Lucid Dreaming For myself, I notice if I get hot in the night, if I have too many blankets, or the room gets too hot, I'm much less likely to become lucid. So this is really important to pay close attention to this even throughout the night, you might go to sleep and feel that you're at a good temperature while you're falling asleep, but then later in the night, you might wake up and notice I'm really hot, I'm sweating or I have too many blankets on. If we can be mindful and make these adaptations in our sleeping space, it can really support greater lucidity. So just take take that in and notice perhaps, what is your ideal sleeping temperature? Do you tend to sleep hot? Do you tend to sleep cool. How might you adapt your environment to really support your lucid dreaming practice in this way? Second potential obstacle is an inappropriate amount of light in your space could be too much. Light could be too little. So when we speak about sleep hygiene, we often say, make your room as dark as possible. And typically, this is what we're wanting to get really good, deep, rejuvenative, long sleep. I've played with this a lot, and what I've noticed is I've gone to the total extreme of blackout blinds in my room with curtains over them, no ambient light showing, and an eye mask on. So basically as much darkness as I can get. And what I've noticed is that actually having a very dark space, but with a little bit of ambient light, is slightly more preferential to induce lucid dreaming. Tenzin wingal Rinpoche, one of our teachers, talks about this. He talks about sleeping with a little electronic candle by your bed. And what he says is that having a light as an outer source of light is actually good to induce the inner light of awareness to stay on in the dream state. And I have found this to be really true in my experience. So now I sleep with my blackout blinds pulled up, but I don't wear an eye mask, and I leave a little bit of ambient light coming through from a night light in my bathroom, which is connected to my bedroom. So play with this for yourself. If you're still in the place in your practice where you're cultivating greater sleep hygiene, where you're working on getting enough sleep, deep enough sleep, long enough sleep, go for the total darkness. Get that first. But then, if you are wanting to just turn that light of awareness on a little bit internally, play with bringing a little bit of light into your external environment and see which balance works for you. Good. So third potential obstacle is an inappropriate amount of sound in your space. And again, we want to be fine tuning with what's too much what's too little when it comes to sound. So in the environment in which I live, the primary sounds that might wake me up in the night are wind. We live in the mountains, so we get really strong winds here, the house creaking and every so often, maybe some animals like coyotes outside. The most disturbing of these for me is the wind element, and so, and that's quite frequent where I live. So what I've found in my own practice is that having a little bit of ambient noise in the room, not too much, but just enough to block out those interjections that go from the take the sound level from total silence to loud, having a little bit of ambient sound makes those transitions more less of have less of an effect on me, in terms of waking me up, but also I don't have. So much white noise sound in my space that it completely blocks out all external sounds. Because when it comes to lucid dreaming, it is actually can be beneficial to have a little bit of lighter sleep in certain moments of your night. So having a little bit of external sound in your environment that is waking you up, even if it's not fully waking you up, can actually be really supportive to the lucid dreaming practice. So again, this is a slight nuance between the sleep hygiene practices and the lucid dream hygiene practices. If you're still working on sleep. Focus on that. But if you're really transitioning into the lucid dreaming, work play with this. Play with the temperature, the sound, the light. Try to find the balance that works best for you. Great. So fourth element, and the final element that I'll speak to on this environmental level, is sleeping partners. So if you have someone that you sleep with in your bed, and you have different sleeping schedules or environmental needs for sleep that can impact your lucid dreaming as well. So this is something you just may want to explore, if you do sleep in the same bed with your partner, how you can really optimize your sleep schedules and your interactions with each other so that it doesn't become an obstacle to your lucid dreaming practice. So Bodhi and I often sleep separately because of this reason, because we have different sleep schedules and we have different environmental needs for our sleeping so we choose to sleep in different rooms most of the time so that we can really focus on our dream practice. But this can also just be something you work out and navigate with your partner in whatever way works for you. But it is worth speaking to, because it can be a really big obstacle and a big impact on your lucid dreaming.

Great. So this is the environmental obstacle piece coming to a completion and and now we're going to go more into the inner environment of our body's experiences as potential obstacles to lucid dreaming, and how we can work with our body's experiences to really optimize our lucidity in the dream space. And I'm going to be speaking about our body experiences as sensations and feelings, and I wanted to find what the difference is between those in my languaging sensations are neutral, objective descriptors of our body's experience that are based on sensory stimuli. So this could be hot or cold, it could be light or heavy, it could be tense or loose, words such as these that are more neutral and objective descriptors. Feelings, on the other hand, are our subjective interpretation of our bodies in the moment experience. So feelings are more personal. They're more how we're interpreting our experience. But in this language, in this framework that I'm using today, feelings are distinct from emotions. Chelsea is going to be sharing more about emotions and thoughts, and we define emotions and thoughts as being more connected with the mind and go being more connected through time, going into the past, going into the future, whereas sensations and feelings, what I'm focusing on first, are more in the body, in the moment, here and now. Okay, so why is this relevant to lucid dreaming, our unconscious mind, which we are often non lucid to, is basically all of our unprocessed, unwanted experience. Andrew sometimes refers to this as the refuse heap, everything that we have rejected, we put into our unconscious mind, and then our unconscious mind brings forth our dreams. This includes sensations and feelings, and working with these modalities of experience, sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, is one of the most. Most elemental ways to get to the root of what we're grasping on to or what we're avoiding. So today, we're going to focus on how to bring this more into the light our body experience. I'm going to give an example of this in my own practice. So one of the feelings that has been, classically, more of a non lucid feeling for me, is the feeling of tiredness. If I feel tired, historically, I have really identified with that feeling. I am tired. I feel tired, therefore I am tired, and it's hard to distinguish that from my identity, in a way. And what I started to notice is that in my dreams, I was having a recurring dream that I was at an all night party and I was just trying to find a place to sleep. I was just trying to find a bed. And every time I would go into a different space and try to find a bed, something would wake me up. And I would be literally tired all night in these dreams. And I would wake up from these dreams, tired. And these dreams always were non lucid dreams, and I could really see how this was my subconscious mind telling me you're very non lucid to the experience of tiredness. You're not able to become lucid in a dream where you experience tired because you're not lucid to the experience of tiredness in your body in the day. So it's incredibly relevant to our dreaming experience, and you might notice this for yourself and in your own feelings and the sensations that could be very different than my own experience of tiredness being the challenging one for me. You might have certain sensations or feelings that are challenging for you. So I'm going to bring up a list of some sensations and feelings.

Great.

And are you able to see that list? Good. Okay, so the sensational qualities, again, are the more neutral object objective descriptors, and then the feeling qualities are the more subjective descriptors. This is by no means a comprehensive list that it gives you a taste of some of the sensations and feelings that we experience. And so I invite you to simply take a moment and scan through this list and notice, are there any of these sensations or feelings that you are perhaps more non lucid to in your own experience. This could be because you grasp onto them, you identify with them, or it could be because you avoid them, you push them away. Just take a moment to notice which ones stand out to you as perhaps being more in the non lucid realms of your experience. I

and if you feel called, I invite you to actually share in the chat to write down one or two of these that you have more non lucidity with

great and if you're not feeling called to write it in the chat, maybe just Write it in your own journal for your own knowing, nice someone said movement. One of the things that's always interesting to me about this is that it's it's different for each of us, restlessness, late and lost. I easily notice hunger, but I'm slow to notice satiety, discomfort, especially clutteredness, non lucidity around grogginess, which is a combination of tiredness and a thick, heavy sensation in the head that I sometimes experience when I awaken, distraction. Yes, good, yeah, so we can see how this manifests differently for each of us, and if we can bring our awareness into our own sensations and feelings and be comfortable being lucid. With all of them. This creates more lucidity in our waking lives and more lucidity in our dreams. We're no longer translating our experiences, and we're no longer putting them into the refuse heap of unwanted or what we're grasping onto. We are allowing them and accepting them

great.

All right, so I'm actually going to leave this up so that you can all see it, and I'm going to transition now into guiding us into a somatic practice so that we can experience together more of a felt sense of sensations, feelings in the body, and learn a practice of how to be with them, whatever they are, as they're arising. So if it feels good, I invite you to find a comfortable seat. You

close your eyes and rest your palms face down on your thighs, or with one palm on top of the other in your lap.

Feel your spine as upright and straight. There's a sense of alertness, but there's also a sense of relaxation and opening, especially in your heart space.

Gently bring your awareness to your breath as it is, without changing it in any way. And first, simply notice the breath in its natural state. And notice

that there is movement with each inhalation and exhalation and and

there's A pause, stillness at the bottom of each exhalation. And

it notice that with each inhale, there is cool air that enters through your nostrils,

and with each exhale, there is warm air that exits through your nostrils.

Notice the expansion on the inhale in your torso

and the relaxation in your torso With each exhale.

And now I invite you to expand your awareness to your whole body.

And in a moment, I'm going to guide you in a body scan process. I'm eyes where you're simply noticing the sensations that are arising in your body, moment to moment, and each time you notice the sensation arise naturally speak out loud the location and the quality of the sensation, completely accept whatever sensation it is that has arisen, and then to let it go as you wait for the next sensation to naturally arise. Yes, so I'm going to demonstrate this so that you have a sense of it. And while we're doing this process, all of our microphones will be muted, so you'll be speaking it out loud what you notice, but you'll just be speaking to yourself in your own space. It sounds like this.

I notice tension in my solar plexus. I

i sense heaviness in my legs.

I feel tightness in my chest.

I sense soft relaxation in my arms

so each time I'm noticing a sensation arise in my body's experience, I'm speaking it out loud, accepting it and then letting it go as I wait for the next sensation to arise, we will spend the next few minutes in silence as you engage this body scan process in your own space, beginning Now And

and now I invite you to pause wherever You are in your process, let that go and bring one hand to your lower belly and the other hand to your heart, and simply notice, how do you feel? This feeling experience is more of your subjective interpretation of your body's in the moment experience. Simply notice how do you feel,

and whatever you notice offer radical acceptance to this feeling and.

Now begin to bring some movement to your arms, to your legs, if it feels good, stretch your arms and your legs and and in your own timing, gently blink your eyes Open, coming back to the shared space.

So this practice is one that you can work with in a more formal sense, as we just did, and it's also one that you can work with in an informal sense, in any moment when you're experiencing any sensation or feeling as a way of accepting it as it's arising, without grasping onto it or averting it and then letting it go. This is a powerful practice to cultivate greater lucidity in both waking life and dreams. So with that being said, I will now pass it over to Chelsea waves.

Thank you, Katie, that was a beautiful practice. I'm feeling very grounded in my body right now. I'm going to talk about navigating obstacles to lucidity, through mental obstacles. I'm going to start off with a quote by a dream yoga master. The quote is, obstacles don't obstruct the path. They are the path. Considering our quality of mind is essential when practicing lucid dreaming, our inability to recognize what is happening in our mental state can distract us from our present moment experience in waking life and in the dream state. So being aware of our state of mind during the day can positively affect the nature of our dreams. This is a bi directional process, so it goes both ways. So by being lucid in the waking state, we then can become lucid in the dream state. By practicing lucid dreaming, we're choosing to become more attuned to our inner dialog by cultivating awareness in all states of being, I'm going to go through some of the mental obstacles that we encounter, the first one being mental noise or chatter. So our minds are constantly generating thoughts. If you've taken a moment to just sit down and try to tune into maybe what's going on in your mind, especially when you start to meditate, there can be this feeling of, oh, wow, there are so many thoughts. Has it always been this way? Yes, you're just noticing it, and you're not alone. Everyone experiences this. Everyone is constantly generating thoughts. This can be known as the monkey mind, which can be a distraction, making it really difficult to focus if we're not aware of it. When attention jumps from one thought to another, just like a monkey swinging from one branch to another. This mental chatter can lead us to overthink and listen to our inner critic, making it really difficult to see the simple and clear truth. What's an antidote to this concentration, we can cultivate concentration by focusing effort on a single, one static point, so you can think about a candle or your breath, or as Katie was speaking to the feeling of your breath going in and out of the Point your nose, right here, this practice can help us focusing, focus on what is happening right here, right now, and essentially filter out distractions, allowing us to examine the content of our minds more closely and more clearly. The second obstacle that I'm going to speak to is thoughts and emotions. When we get lost in thought, when we follow that monkey through the trees, we can be unaware of what is taking place. We hop on a train of thought which transports us to another reality, a virtual existence where no. Longer in our bodies, but purely in our thoughts. At this point, we've lost touch with our earthbound vessels and have escaped into our minds. We are our thoughts in that moment, our emotions can also cloud our judgment and make it challenging to be in our present moment experience. If we're experiencing anger, being upset, feeling depressed, stressed, or have positive emotions such as excitement or pride, it can be difficult to remain aware of our mental state. I'm going to give a couple examples about how thoughts and emotions can be. They can be. I'm losing my train of thought in the moment, everyone, let's come back to the it's beautiful. I love those moments, right? Gotta be real. So we're going to talk about grasping and aversion. So grasping is when we hold on to something. We cling to it. We fixate on things. It can be things, ideas, experiences or relationships, as if they're permanent and satisfying or inherently real. An example of this for me that I've experienced many times in my life is maybe being part of a group, and I'm sitting there listening to everyone, and all of a sudden I have this amazing idea, and I grasp on to that idea that's going to fix whatever problem we're in. And at that moment, because I've seen this path that's going to take us to where we want to go, I become that idea. I'm no longer open to any other perceptions or options from other people or myself, I become contracted and closed around that thought. I grasp onto it. An example of a version would be for me, if I'm feeling angry or overwhelmed, I've noticed for me when I'm in relationship with someone and maybe talking to them, and then all of a sudden, this feeling of anger or overwhelm comes up. I'll actually try to stuff it down. I'll try to push it away and pretend it doesn't exist, turn away from it because it's causing me discomfort, and maybe I don't want to be seen in that emotion by the person that I'm with. The remedy for this particular obstacle is mindfulness. When we're not mindful, when we're not fully present in the moment, we're more likely to be influenced by our thoughts and our emotions. This can make it really challenging to be lucid in our dreams and in our waking life, and to see things clearly, as I've mentioned, becoming familiar with our minds really allows us to recognize our experience in the waking state, which cultivates our ability to wake up in the dream. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous. If we can recognize that we are non lucid, we can become lucid. We can cultivate a mindfulness by a persistently and gently, it's important gently reminding ourselves to maintain our awareness of whatever is happening right now. Mindfulness really supports us in being present with our thoughts and our emotions and not letting ourselves become lost or entangled in a storyline like in a non lucid dream, right? We're in the dream things are happening around us. Maybe we're seeing flying mermaids or dinosaurs or unicorns, and we're just like, Yeah, this is this is life. This is how it is, right? So you can imagine those like unicorns and those dinosaurs as your thoughts, as your emotions, you're just going along with them, like, this is just the way it is. But maybe you notice one, you notice that unicorn, and you're like, Wait, this is not part of my waking state reality, yeah, or you maybe want to see dinosaurs like John great, create a lucid dream to do that. Lucidly see dinosaurs, right? We can lucidly see our emotions too. We can lucidly. See our thoughts. So mindfulness really gives us the opportunity to see ourselves and the situation exactly as they are. I'm going to guide a short practice to ground this for us a little bit more around mindfulness, lucid in the sky with dinosaurs. I love how you guys love the dinosaurs.

I actually went to a medium somewhat recently, and she's like, I'm seeing dinosaurs. So apparently they're like, in my awareness. I All right, so we'll calm ourselves down a little bit. It's wonderful to have joy and laughter. It's important We'll notice how that makes our body feel, and we'll take some time to just

calm,

calm our vessels, our bodies, into The moment, because stillness

can support us in mindfulness and

stillness in our bodies can support stillness in our minds.

And if you haven't already, make sure your feet are on the ground, your back is in an upright position, not leaning back on the chair, finding the middle way of Not too tight, not too loose in your posture. Just notice if there's anywhere that you can release a little bit more, maybe it's in your jaw or in your shoulders, around our eyes, a lot of us like to tighten around our eyes, and it can feel so subtle Just to

release air.

Now Just notice your breath and

changing it, Just noticing it, and

as we're calling concentrating on Our breath,

notice that thoughts will arise

naturally and

our brain does this.

The point of meditation isn't to stop our thoughts, it's to change our relationship with them and

so you're on this platform of your breath, concentrating, and all of A sudden maybe you're thinking about how you're hungry, or what you're going to be doing later today, or dinosaurs in your dreams, some things, you're somewhere else, but You're no longer here

with the breath with us,

and you're going to want to do when you notice that you've hopped on the train of thought,

just to gently notice that.

Not to judge it at all. Just notice, okay, I hopped on the train of thought and ask yourself, How did I get here? Try to, I like to think of it as a rope

your follow. Following the rope back to the platform of your breath. How did you get to that thought? Follow the thoughts back. I

and it can be a really insightful practice, how our thoughts really do jump from one branch to Another like a monkey.

Maybe there's some through line.

Can you follow that line

Back to the beginning and

Murphy, being gentle with this practice. I appreciate some meditation teachers will say it's like how you would treat a puppy. Treat your mind like a puppy. You're Training puppy kind and understanding and loving And

how did I get here? I

and if you're able to follow the rope back, the next iteration of This is what's there? What is that? The beginning? You

What will you find at the end of that rope? I

now, as we transition back to the group, we're going to do this slowly and gently, practicing gentleness

with ourselves,

and that can go out to others. So what we'll do is, instead of moving quickly, we'll take three breaths at whatever pace and depth feels right for you. You can keep your eyes closed while you're doing this. You.

Now start to wiggle your fingers and your toes, maybe moving your shoulders from side to side, maybe rolling your neck a little bit, whatever intuitively sounds nice to you. Can even put your head, your hands above your head, take a little stretch, and then open your eyes back to the group and

Okay, so now we have our Q and A this portion of the gathering is really for all of us to connect to share any community contributions around lucid dreaming. Anybody who had their first lucid dream, or they're unsure if they had a lucid dream, you're welcome to come on and share with us. We really love to explore that with you and hear about your experience. And then, of course, if you have any questions about what we just shared, or lucid dreaming in general. So feel free to raise your hand using the Raise Your Hand feature, which is underneath react. Or you can just do this if you can't find the button, I'll see you if you have your camera on.

Hi. Miriam, I see you all right, Gilda, good to see you. Gilda,

hello. Hi everyone. It's nice to remember to show up. I'll share one experience that I have, that I just had with the practice that you offered, Chelsea, the meditation. What came up for me is that when I close my eyes and have a view. What comes in is a view, as if I had my eyes opened of the you the so that's really what what shows up. And I can like if I had my eyes open, so I can let it go and continue with the breath. So it's not a per se that I am following, but the view of what's in front of me, which I can view it even though my eyes are closed, that's what's coming up for me. I don't, I don't know, fits into the antidotes that we're trying to use. Do

you feel like it's an obstacle, or how do you, how do you hold that experience for yourself.

Since I work with dreams like individuation, like Jung lucidity comes on its own, I don't necessarily willfully and induce it whenever I wish to me, it seems just part of the moment. I don't you know it's an obstacle, no obstacle only if it starts needling. If you know I move, I'm moving, and it continues to it's, for me, it's more like a needling, you know, if I'm going to bring it into the physicality of of of not just words and definitions, it's actually a physics thing that, on a micro level, there's a kind of needling in the energy, wherever that might be, that that that's demanding, that maybe is concentrated, there is something and it might be demanding, you know, that that, and I associate it with chakras, that if they're not open or something, then there's a concentration of energy there and and it shows up like a needling, because it's not maybe fully open or what have you. So that's, that's what I wrestle with.

Yeah. Thank you, Gilda, for sharing. Sharing your experience, and what I'm hearing is, when you close your eyes, you're still having a mental image present itself. And I'm also hearing from you that that mental image is not distracting from the practice or what you're doing, and it just is. And it's not creating a needling inside of yourself or a feeling of obstacle, yeah, it's just part of the experience that you're having. And often we close our eyes so that we can feel more deeply into our somatic experience, because having our eyes open a lot of the time for a lot of us, can feel like a lot, so closing our eyes lets us come in a little bit, but ideally in meditation, you have your eyes open, because in waking life, we have our eyes open.

All right.

Are there any in the chat? Yeah, thank you. Gilda, you Gilda. You want to read them?

Yeah? Marian had a question earlier, how do you classify yawning, which is a great question, in relationship with a feeling or a sensation? So it could actually be either a yawn has a number of sensations associated with it, like expansion, stretching, maybe some tightness, depending on how you experience the yawn. And then there might be a feeling associated with the yawn, like relief or contentment, or there could even be angst, if you have trouble reaching the top of the yawn for some reason, right? So, so both Yeah, could be sensations and feelings associated with with yawning. Great. And then yeah, there's a couple more recent ones, Chelsea, if you want to read this, okay.

Here from Patrick,

have you had any success with wild asparagus root affecting dreams or lucidity? What Google search words do you recommend searching for to find a legitimate supplier of authentic Blue Lotus in Asia? Odie? Do you have anything to share with us?

Yeah, so some great questions, and it's always nice to hear that there's somebody else exploring these kind of plan. Plants that offer some assistance to us. We're we're not at liberty to to really delve into that for various reasons here on nightclub, just so we don't get in trouble, I guess we but so it's the Yeah, I would Blue Lotus has been a long time since I've went looking for it, but I guess I could say When I did look for it many years ago. I found a source that was had originals from Egypt, but they were, they were cultivating them. I believe somewhere in Asia. I think it was Vietnam. So if that helps, maybe steering that way. It seemed like it was a really good source and something like that, and so, so, yeah, good luck with trying to figure that out. But it's it can be like just a lot of research and maybe chat, GBT or AI, might be able to help you navigate that. I haven't. I haven't gone back to exploring and researching some of that stuff, so that's what I have.

Thanks, Bodhi, I saw your heart, Patrick, so you put a little heart up. And just for anybody who isn't familiar with Blue Lotus, it's an herb the flower that we can actually use. It's been said to support lucid dreaming practices.

Yeah, and these, these plant medicines or compounds that are meant to support lucid dreaming practices. Some call on nitrogens. I believe it was Jennifer dumpert who coined that term, term so on nitrogens that help own iron ox or lucid dream explorers. And John, who's here in the group, is actually a. He has a he's a pharmacist, and has a lot of wisdom around this, and we've been in some communication with him around potential and I regen. So he had thought about going into it more deeply, but it wasn't advised by the nightclub legal team, so we're not going into it in this context. Great.

Right. So the next question is from David, I have a medical issue, so I wake up often with the urgent need to pee, so I need to get up quickly, which means I have trouble both sleeping long enough to get to the dream states conducive to lucid dreaming, Dream Yoga and be able to work with writing down dreams and trouble having space to use hypnopompic, hypnagogic states to remember, work with and revise dreams. Any suggestions? Katie,

yeah, I'm just going to read the question again to myself because I was looking at the other chat question while you were reading that,

having space to Use. Yeah, yeah. So you know, a lot of times we have medical challenges or medical or even sleeping interruptions that can interfere with our lucid dreaming practice. And what I always recommend in these situations is is just to work with it as best we can. One thing I might suggest, just because it can be a bit more efficient in terms of taking notes on your lucid dreams, is to get an audio recorder where it doesn't take as long, you don't have to spend as much time writing it down, and then you can just say even a few words in the night. Oh. Marianne is showing us her audio recorder. Beautiful. Working with these waking moments can actually be a way of creating an opportunity for lucid dreaming, too. So I know if it's too frequent where you're not dropping into very long REM states, that can make it more challenging, for sure, but you might set the intention. You might say tonight, may I wake up in my dreams, even if my REM period is very short, may I have a moment of lucidity. May I have a short lucid dream. You might work with it with with the intention in such a way to customize it to your particular situation. It's amazing how the mind will respond to us when we acknowledge what we're experiencing and try to work with it in a creative way. So my suggestion would be just to be creative with it, and also to notice these waking states can be moments of opportunity, and you can even take your little voice recorder into the bathroom with you. I've done this before. I've even had the sound of my peeing in the background of some of the dreams that I'm recording. So get playful with it. Be open with it. And yeah, just know, many of us have these kinds of health challenges and obstacles that we're navigating in the night, and as much as you can have a joyful and optimistic stance about them, that's that's really beneficial to the practice. So thank you for this really sensitive and vulnerable question. David and I hope that helped. And if there's anything further, feel free to reach out via chat or privately to one of us.

I'll go to a live question. Mike,

general question. I'm enjoying this because I had a dog with Bodhi about a month ago, and I'm looking for a connection, because all of my dream Embarkment is really random. I have all kinds of experiences, and I am on the nightclub now, and I introduce myself, but it keeps showing me in the draft. So I am assuming nobody can connect, so I don't know how not to be still stuck in the draft introduction.

Are you talking about on the nightclub website? Yeah, yeah. So those types of questions, I recommend. I can get the email address for you, and I can put it in the chat once I'm done answering your question or but you want to reach out to night credit club directly about that. I'm sorry that you're having that experience, though I understand that you're wanting to create community and reach out and that it's not working well right now. We're all. So in the middle of like a transition going from one platform to another. So actually, you letting us know about this is helpful, because other people might be having that same experience.

You know, I just got Ryan hurts book yesterday, and blasted through it because I saw the interview with Andrew and him, and I thought, oh, Andrew says he's okay, okay, I'm going to read this. So I've got all of this stuff going on, and I'm expanding exponentially, and I don't know what to do with this. I need to talk to somebody so, so somebody tell me to what to do with this please. Oh,

that's beautiful. I think you're taking, you know, the right steps by connecting to community, through nightclub, through coming to this group, through talking to lucid dreaming guides like Bodie Katie or myself. And then you could even take another step. And if you're able to like create community in person, wherever you live, you could create a meetup if you want to about lucid dreaming, if you prefer to meet in person.

Okay, but how do I connect with people on the nightclub site?

So in order to connect with people on the nightclub sites that you're having an issue, I need to give you the email of the person that can support your customer service. It's kind of like a customer service issue that you're okay. I wish I had a magic wand that could fix it. Okay.

I'm glad I'm gonna get to do more sharing, because this is fun. And I want to know who, who else is on this train. Yeah, there's actually, like, 40 years ago. Okay, so I'm putting copies of page 174, on Hey. Okay, this what I'm doing fourth, the fourth fourth way, all the fists. And I'm going, okay, things have moved in the last 40 years. How do I get caught? Caught up on this thing? Well,

it sounds like you have a lot of enthusiasm, so I'm really encourage you to channel that in the ways that you're continuing to do. And like I said, I'll put that email address in the chat for you. Mike,

excellent. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Hi, Rob,

Hi. Good to see you. Good to see you guys. I've really more an observation, in case this is helpful to other people too. I find when I lie down in bed do things to try to induce lucidity. It gives me a little bit of a kind of like, I am here and I really want to get over there. It sort of, it makes lucidity seem a little distant, or like, I don't know there's something about I'm kind of putting in this effort to get a specific goal that, just in my case, it's, it's kind of hard to do, but the lucidity practices during the day, for me, if I do those, I mean, the day is more lucid, and that when I lay down, it's already kind of a conducive state. And I think those just wanted in case anybody else has the same, you know, difficulty, if you want to call it that, it seems to me to be I have more lucid dreams when I'm doing the practices during the day, especially the mantra that you guys gave us, the lucidity mantra, and the looking for my shadow or my reflection in the car glass. And then I noticed when I lay down, it's sort of, it doesn't seem distant. Lucidity doesn't seem distant. So in case that might be helpful,

that's beautiful. Rob, thank you so much for sharing that. It sounds like you've really found your sweet spot, both in terms of when to do the practices as well as which practices to do that are supportive to you. And what I'm hearing is that when you try to do them at night, it feels too tight, and that tightness is actually a preventer of lucidity. So I appreciate you sharing this because it's inviting us all to notice where are we in our own too tight or too loose experience of our practices, and how can we cultivate our practices in such a way where we are on that middle path, and it sounds like you've really found that and been cultivating that, and I would say, yeah, just continue to trust that, because it's there's so many paths that lead to lucidity, and it's unique for each of us. So beautiful. Rob, thank you very much for your share,

right? So then last. Question that we have in the chat is from Chris, my overactive imagination takes me away enjoyably on a story in the middle of the night, I am trying to turn that around by a breath meditation to help become lucid, but it feels like a losing battle. Exclamation point. Is there another form of meditation that you would recommend? So, yeah, Chris, there's so many different forms of meditation, and what we found is that really trying the different types of meditation and seeing which one you feel really resonates for you. So the I would recommend, based upon what you're sharing with me, that maybe do shamatha or concentration practice, try that out, because that will help you concentrate, kind of like we were speaking to usually, when we're starting to learn how to meditate, it's recommended that we actually start with shamatha practice or concentration. It's a tool that can support us in mindfulness. So if we start out with concentrating, then we'll be able to focus, so that maybe when we're in a dream, and like I said, there's all of those different dream images popping up in the dream. We can stay focused on our intention to become lucid in the dream. So you can try that. It sounds like maybe the breath work isn't your your way, or maybe there's a different form of breath work that could really work for you. So just try different things out you really want, yeah, basic Qigong can be great. Or Tai Chi. There's so many different forms of meditation. There was another one that I was going to speak to, which is, no lost it. Okay. Katie, do you have anything else to share? I just

have one question for you, Chris, when you're having that experience of being lost in that story, and maybe you notice, oh, I'm lost in the story, how are you being with it? Are you judging yourself for that? Is there trying to stop it or forcefulness around it. What's your relationship to those stories that you're finding yourself lost in?

Well, I'm enjoying them too much. That's the problem. Yes, I'm very grateful to all of you in this whole group. By the way, I'm inspired by all of your questions, and your presence means a great deal to me. Yes, I recognize and I try and pull it back. I don't do it aggressively, but it's a struggle. You know? It's a,

yeah, yeah. So it's, there's a phrase Andrew uses in his book, dreams of light, my favorite illusions, yeah. And we all have them, right? We all have these stories that we love to be lost in. That's the whole basis of samsara. And so, yeah, so what I what I find, because I have these too. I have stories that I love to be lost in, that I love to have dreams about, even sometimes non lucid dreams. And what I find is allowing them to a certain amount, because often the person, the stories, come from an egoic place, and we all have egos. We're here as humans. So allowing, like giving some permission to ego, to have those to enjoy that, but then also cultivating the mindfulness and the practice to work with that directly. And, you know, working with some of the practices that Chelsea might have suggested, you might also look into mindfulness, which is more of just a direct way of working with the story, oh, there's a story. I'm going to Okay, bring myself back to the moment. Yeah. But, but in general, just being having an attitude of like, Yeah, this is part of why we're here. Is to play and to enjoy and to have fun, getting lost in these stories. But ultimately, to become more and more lucid, we have to work towards not getting lost in the stories, witnessing them, becoming more present to them, rather than becoming them. So good.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you very much.

Go ahead. Mary. Ann, oh,

so I asked Andrew about this early on, because my most lucid experiences are stories, and they are extensions of stories I write in waking life, and I was happy to have this creative experience in the dream. But. What it was and what I wanted. I wanted to have this mystical experience, and I was frustrated, and I kept trying to have this intention. And finally, when I asked Andrew about it, he said, Take what you get. And I was like, Oh, be thankful that you have this capacity. And then he turned me on to talking to the characters in my story. So and I can't always do it, but I've done it enough that now I welcome this whatever the creative experience is, and for me, that's a huge difference, because when we're always pushing away what is being given to us, we're losing This huge opportunity. And I keep having that same experience with also with bodily sensation in the dream that I keep saying, I don't want this. And the minute I open myself up to, wow, this is really interesting. What's going on here? It changes. I

a beautiful offering. Thank you. Marian

Elaine,

hi, so I've had a few lucid dreaming experiences that were really dramatic and wonderful. And that's what brought me to this group, originally. And lately, I've been, like, very aware in these dreams, like I'm a witness seeing the dreams happen. I'm not like, sort of being done to like in the dream. So I feel like I have some sense of, like, holding the experience like as it's happening, and kind of helping to guide it in a way. But I don't feel like it's like, fully lucid, you know, like, I like, I haven't flown in a while, you know, had that, like, full on, you know, like I can walk through a wall kind of thing, and I, you know, It's just like I'm remembering my dreams, like, say, more nights than I don't. And, you know, so I feel like I'm on, like, right on the edge of like, lucidity. But, and I was wondering if you have any ideas, because I don't want to try too hard, like, because then it's like, right, like, then that's grasping, but I feel like if I just maybe shift something a little bit in the practice, it would help. Every night, before I go to bed, I write my, you know, intentions, and I often do the Blue Lotus. I mean that not blue the Red Lotus meditation, because focusing on my throat and that tracing and like saying the mantra, like it's all very engrossing, like, it kind of takes all of me to do that, so I you know it, it works for me. But yeah, so I'm still just, I feel just a little stuck.

Well, it's beautiful that you're noticing your stuckness and being curious about maybe something that you can try differently. Because I hear that you're kind of noticing that within your spectrum of lucidity, right? Because the city is a spectrum, you can be kind of lucid, like you're speaking to where you're maybe pillow lucid, and you're looking around at the dream scene, and you're kind of aware and holding it right, but not able to, like, really co create with it in a way of being able to jump off and fly or walk through a wall or anything like that. So what I've noticed in my own practice is that when I get to a place where there's an obstacle such as this, I start to ask myself questions

like, Is this?

Is this a mental obstacle, right? Is this an emotional obstacle? Is this maybe a sleep hygiene thing? It doesn't sound like it's a sleep hygiene thing for you. Yeah, but it does sound like maybe it's a mental obstacle in some way. And it sounds like you know you're writing down your intentions and you're wanting to be mindful of not being too tight or too loose. Mm, hmm. And so I want to ask you, Elaine, like, what do you feel intuitively is preventing you from doing the things like walking through a wall or flight?

That's a really good question.

Maybe I uh, nervousness or belief, maybe, like, some kind of limiting belief. Um, yeah, I'm kind of, like leaning towards limiting belief. Like, that's the hardest for me. It's really hard because it's like, sort of culturally, like, inculcated, you know, like, it's just like part of me, so, like, I've been working on a lot of that stuff, you know, they're falling off, but it's, you know, yeah, so maybe if I just thinking about it that way, might help. I don't know.

Yeah, recognizing that is huge. Okay, it's a limiting belief that's preventing me from flying or walking through a wall. Can I shift that belief? Can I really shift it? It's not only like logically shifting it, but it's really feeling it in your body that right, this is true, that this is a looser form all of it is, and it can really help with like daytime practices, illusory form practices, like, if you read dreams of light, I think that could really help you by games, and he goes through those practices in there. Rob was talking about them. Katie's holding the book up. It has a little crescent moon on it. Okay, yep,

I probably have it in my audio books. I can't listen to him fast enough.

I know you mean.

Okay, so thanks. Those, those are great ideas, and it's good just to talk about it, because I don't know anybody else who does this.

Yeah, community is so important, right? Because if you go up to people and you're like, so I'm trying to walk through a wall, or, like, fly, flying flying is kind of more common, or, like, going to the ground like a mole. They're gonna be like, okay, yeah.

Well, when I had an alien come in and, like, pick me up and walk me through a wall, and I was like, Oh, I can go through but then, like, so he was like, showing me, oh, yeah, you're fine. You can do it. But like, I still haven't, you know what I mean, I haven't, like, risen to the challenge

yet. Yeah, that's super interesting. So, like, your mind felt like it needed assistance, yeah, something outside of you to move you through the wall. Yeah, right.

It was, like a best dream. It was.

Patrick said the alien may be one of your guys. That's true.

Yes, yeah. I'll have to try and, like, figure out his name. Like, yeah, yeah, hey. Like, teach me more about this.

Do you have something to add?

No, I was just gonna say Marion put in the chat. You could also ask the dream for help, or ask a dream Guide, which, yeah, yeah, or a dream guide. And then Patrick said, maybe the alien is her dream guide.

Someone told me that in dreams like aliens now are like, sort of the equivalent of like a Christ figure back, you know, 1000 years ago, or, you know, or 500 years ago where, like, our culture has changed so much now it's like aliens, or like, taking that role. So I just thought that was fascinating. But anyway,

that is fascinating. Yeah, thank you for sharing Elaine and like, keep on looking at those beliefs. And yeah, ask your dream guides. And

yeah, you know, I

really thank you, Patrick for bringing up that, because I have forgotten to call in that guide. Like, what I mean, he just seems so alien, right? I guess that's the point.

Thanks a lot. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, anything else in the chat? Okay, there's one more see question mark. Is it even an obstacle? If you are remaining in lucid awareness, it depends upon your goal and purpose. Katie, do you have anything to share with that question?

I think he kind of answered his own question with that. I think it was okay, all right.

I was kind

of feeling that I just wanted I heard a yes. Was that John saying yes? Maybe okay,

I was just mentioning that because I'm not sure, depending on someone's purpose of why they want to lose a dream, it isn't an obstacle to not be able to do it, you know, transforming the dream, or doing certain things, because if you're doing it for, you know, just the joy of being lucid, then maybe, yeah, that might be concerning if you're doing it as a spiritual practice, that isn't the purpose. The purpose is to remain in lucidity, day and night. The purpose is to remain in awareness, particularly people who have practiced so Chen or other different spiritual practices, that the lucidity is simply just a tool to help you remain aware and to remain and rest in emptiness. And it's you know, the transformation isn't the goal of the dream. So, and being lucid, of you know, transforming the dream is not the goal of lucidity. So I just wanted to put that out there. It wasn't really a question of mine, but to have people who are concerned about what they're experiencing their dreams. Ask themselves, you know, what is your purpose? And is it something that needs to be changed or not? That's all,

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you, John, yeah, and it's, it's interesting, because in the Dream Yoga path, you know, it starts with liber with recognition, which is just becoming lucid, and then it goes through transformation. So we work with transforming the mind, and then we get to liberation, which is the third stage. So yeah, depending on what our intentions are and where we are in the path, transformation may or may not be appropriate. And I really appreciate you speaking to the dzogchn way and the kind of more formless ways of working with this whole world of lucidity as well. Yeah, thank you.

Right. I think that is all of our questions today. So we're going to wrap up. We did want to share with you all that nightclub is going through a transition. As I spoke to you a little bit earlier, we're going from one platform to circle. We've been doing this for a while. You guys, if you're signed up for nightclub, you got an email about this, and once we transition to circle, this particular group, will no longer be a gift offering. You'll have to be a member, paying member in order to join us. So you'll be getting an email if you're signed up for nightclub. So if you're not signed up, I'll put the link in again to let you know when that's happening, and it should be in the next couple of months. So maybe sooner, maybe later, kind of takes time to figure out these things. So Gilda,

so does that mean that all the previous material that is shown on the page, like some weeks of videos and such, will not be available for two, two of you,

I believe, at some point in the future, but not immediately, as far as I know, but I can ask that question, and we can get back to you the group that we have, and

also be great to know what at some point in the future means. You know, how are you calculating what? What does that really

mean? So in the next couple of months, we're just trying to give you guys a little bit of a forewarning before it happens. Okay, and we're not in we're not in control of this, in the sense of us being teachers, but we just wanted to let you all know so that it didn't feel like a shock or anything once you get an email that says we're transitioning onto circle, and this will no longer be a free offering. And

so being a member means what really being

a member means that you get access to circle, and then nightclub circle, which will be all of the events that happen through nightclubs. So that's meta. Meditation group, yoga, Nidra, lucid dreaming, induction group,

book study group,

book study group. Andrew is thinking about potentially doing a Q and A again. Don't hold me to that. It's recorded. I'm saying, don't hold me to that. But he's thinking about doing a Q and A again. So you get access to all of those. You get access to the community, which Mike was just speaking to, so you can connect with everybody in nightclub. You also get discounts, sometimes for different kind of events and offerings.

So that is inclusive in the in the membership that one paid yearly. Is that correct? Yes, okay, so

monthly? Yeah,

okay. I was just confused. I wasn't aware that this was a free offering for anyone who's not even a member. That's true

and open to everybody this particular group.

I understand that. Thank you, because you're welcome. Thank

you for asking those questions technology, yeah, yeah. Are there some questions in the chat,

yeah? One is, will the monthly price increase? I haven't heard anything about the price increasing. Have you chose? I haven't. Yeah, I don't think so. As far as we know, there's no monthly price increase. And Jillian is asking, is there a way to attend anything a la carte? I will only attend this group as time or energy is limited. Is there?

I don't believe so. Good.

Yeah, maybe, yeah, I don't know. We can keep our awareness with that and see if we can figure out a way for that to happen. Perhaps, I don't, but I'm not making any promises. I'm just so we'll keep you posted on that. Jillian, okay, great,

and then, Elaine, you have a question.

Well, I, I just had some thoughts about that. I first tried this, you know, my budget has been really, really tight for several years. And so I first tried this group, you know, you know, just without, like it with the using the free membership, and then, of course, I joined, but like, it took me a little time to get everything situated. Like, I just want to suggest that it might be good to let people try one or two meetings before they have to join. I don't know if that's even feasible technically, to set it up that way, but, but it, it's good to let people kind of have a taste of, you know, what this is like, of what this offering really is, and what it can help them with. And, I mean, I appreciate the steady, like, the constancy, you know, the kind of, like, because you don't develop this practice overnight, like, you can have this really quick course, and, like, learn a bunch of stuff, and that can take you for a long time, but this provides that it's like, meditating, you know, like, so anyway, and not everybody will get that at first so, or just by reading about it, because a lot of people have no idea what this is.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Elaine, so the nightclub team is actually thinking about doing an offering in which every month, one of the events is offered as a free offering, so that people have the opportunity to try it out.

You know, that's even better. That would be fantastic. Yeah,

yeah, thank you. And then, or anything else in the chat is a book club preparing to die, or Andrew's other books. You know, Andrew's been taking a really long time with preparing to die. It's a long book, if you've ever seen it, it's a long book, and it's a very deep talk topic, but he is going to be transitioning to another book after they finish that one. I believe they're pretty close.

Yeah, and their recordings from previous book clubs have been going up on the site. So for example, the dreams of light Book Club, which he already did, those recordings, are all accessible by being a nightclub member. There's like, 1000s of hours of pre recorded content. That's part of what you get access to as being a nightclub member. So most, I think most, everything that he has done, like the Dream Yoga webinars, everything like that, is also going to be on nightclub. So it's quite a wealth of of wisdom. And the new site is also quite easy to navigate and access. It kind of makes it feel like, oh, oh, cool. I can engage more of these practices, and I can track my progress on them and things like this. I.

You're muted. Chelsea, I was just looking up what we had next because I couldn't remember if it was you or Bodhi doing the best blessing. So Bodhi, we've got you doing the blessing.

All right. Very good. Thank you, everyone. This has been really great. And I'll be doing the blessing, and Katie will be doing the dedication so in the weeks to come, may we all have deep, restorative sleep, May we all be blessed with more recall of our dreams, and maybe we be blessed with more lucid dreams, blessings everyone

and whatever MERIT has been accumulated by our gathering today we dedicate to the benefit of all sentient beings. May it be so. Thank you, everyone. Beautiful to be with you all. Thank you so much for your presence and your contributions and your practice until next time. Thank you.

Thank all of you so much. Bye.