So I'm going to, this is good, we're good. We're heading towards the top of the hour and we're right where I want to be. So I'm going to read the next chapter which is called a ritual. And this is an important chapter for the book. This is the chapter that tries to bring together why we need a new perspective or an old perspective on lucid dreaming. So despite the snake oil pitch that lucid dreaming is all about controlling your dreams. The real value of lucid dreaming is to interact with the Deep Mind. Otherwise, we would just close our eyes. We'd have a fantasy daydream, done. But that's not really what we want. Lucid Dreaming at its best invites something dynamic, unknown, possibly ecstatic. With greater consciousness, the dreamer can dance with the dream. Gaze into the bright eyes of mystery and move with new power in a mythic world. So let's agree to use a simple definition for lucid dreaming, a dream in which the dreamer knows this is a dream. I don't talk a lot about dream control in this book. It's not a big part of my life. I'm more interested in choice. I'm more interested in meeting the dream where it stands. Now controlled aspects of lucid dreaming do come in handy though. Don't get me wrong, especially when calling the dream for fun when setting the stage. Indeed, when viewed from a practical perspective, lucid dreaming induction can be seen as a controlled ritual used in order to stir up the unconscious mind and its visionary effects. Now, by ritual I mean an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set or precise manner according to a social custom. throwing the book at y'all that's what ritual means. Right? And so when you start noticing what is a ritual you realize that we do this all throughout our lives. In almost every social setting and aspect of our lives rituals are just right there. So reframing lucid dreaming as a ritual complex is the hidden structure behind our forgotten lower. It's the key of getting the most out of the lucid talisman in any dream amulet. The ritual aspects of lucid dreaming can be seen in every step of the process, and I would argue that they're inseparable from the culture of lucid dreaming to begin with the daily practices that bring on lucid dreams, known as induction, right, they're a modern take on the ancient skill of dream incubation. The term comes from the Latin in Cuba era, which means to lie down upon, or as he would say, today, just sleep on it. Dream incubation is about calling dreams. It's about asking for guidance for clarity. Anthropologists, Charles Loughlin has noted that while dream incubation is largely a lost art, many people have participated in dream rituals without knowing it. When they're attempting to have a lucid dream. In fact, lucid dreaming can be thought of as a specific form of dream incubation in which we are not looking for a dream message. But a specific form of dream thinking, being aware of being aware. This is metacognition, right. So we're seeking a specific way of being a specific way of thinking rather than I'm looking for healing or I want to know see a deceased loved one, right. Those are that's content. We're incubating process we're incubating. Now, returning the mirror. So ritual drivers of lucidity. In its weakest form dream incubation can be represented by a wish for a certain kind of dream while lying down before sleep. So this is the idea behind auto suggestion, which is one of the first lucid dreaming techniques that was popularized in the 1970s by lucid pioneer Patricia Garfield. She recently passed away by the way, if you haven't read pathway to ecstasy, the way of the dream and dolla if you can find a copy. It's a very powerful book that is out of print if but I have seen copies on Amazon. I've seen copies on a VHS books and pals. It's a remarkable book and it's shocking actually how much of what she wrote is been repeated in deluded throughout the last like 3040 50 years that she was coming about through her own meditation practices or on mindfulness, as well. As her own, I would say, erotic sensibilities, her embodied consciousness, she really had a way of dreaming that was really his that is really exciting, frankly, and she would, you know, experiment with orgasm and experiment. With sensuality and with all of these things within the safe place of a dream in for her, you know, it was Tantra. It was it was it was spiritual. It was a metaphor for union with the cosmos. Really lovely stuff. So, in stronger variations, common ritual drivers can include affirmations said throughout the day, meditation, prayer, fasting, seclusion, drumming, the ingestion of a tonic or pill or smoked herbs. Sounds familiar, right? These are the new tactics posted on lucid dreaming forums. But all these techniques have been used for millennia across the world in many cultures to ignite altered states of consciousness. We know now neurologically that lucid dreaming is associated with increased activation of the frontal and the parietal lobes. It brings waking like awareness during dreaming. It's a state of consciousness that comes with intense emotions, vivid imagery, and a deep access to long term memory. In this way, lucid dreaming is a bridge between the imagination of the dream state and the focus and intentional thinking that comes with being awake. However, the emphasis on Waking like consciousness and sleep such as applying reason, testing memory skills, signaling to scientists in the lab, all this is a modern preoccupation. Anthropologist Michael Winckelmann has called lucid dreaming a shamanic state of consciousness because it quote integrates the potentials of dreaming and waking consciousness. He calls this the integrative mode of consciousness. It invites the classic markers of visionary awareness that we see in other altered states. These These things include abstract geometric, geometric imagery, encounters with animal human hybrids, right or Ferrier toffs emotional catharsis ecstasy and experiences with white light and non duality. So, that does not mean that every lucid dreaming is a shaman. But it sets up lucid dreaming as a vital bridge into the visionary worlds that we have been long explored for the aims of shamanism around the world. Largely healing, uncovering uncanny information and looking for power looking for personal insight. So this bridge, this transfer of knowledge can go both ways. It's not just about bringing waking life levels of self awareness into the dream, but bringing the imaginal realm back into the waking world. And that's the true potential of lucid dreaming not the ability to change the dream, but our allowance to be changed perhaps to be transformed. That was a lot, right? But um, what I love about Michael Winkleman is work is that he pulls in lucid dreaming and says Look how similar this is to other altered states that we've studied a lot from a psychological perspective from an anthropological perspective from a neurological perspective. And those things that we see in lucid dreams, especially that long term meditators see and those folks who have lucid dreams that last say, you know, like over a minute long, some things begin to happen. Like there's certain archetypes that begin to emerge and this is what he's talking about this, this abstract imagery, and these, these guardian figures, these these, these and these half human half animals, you know, the same thing is that we see on cave walls and Paleolithic caves in Europe. The imagery is, is strikingly parallel.