Well, thank you for the introduction. It's good to see you all. And I'm just kind of scanning here.
See some familiar faces. Great to see you.
Yes, so check out the podcast that Alyssa puts up in the link the link for it's a new podcast by a dream worker, and consciousness, explore Angelo's Santiago. And he he's just got a couple of episodes. I think I was episode two for his work and I really love his approach to dreams to consciousness exploration. I think the first episode that he did was he interviewed someone on Holotropic breathwork and his podcast is really going into all varieties of consciousness studies from psychedelics, to shamanism to dreaming.
It was really it was really fun going having that conversation with them.
So we're gonna do some readings tonight from my book, Lusa talisman, but before I begin, I wanted to open it up to to y'all especially if you were here last week.
If you had any questions or comments, things that are percolating about our discussion that we had last week could be a comment or a question. And I'm also interested to hear if anybody had any amulet related dream experiences.
Oh, yeah, I see Eric's got his hand raised.
Hey, Ryan.
I'm a little behind. I was only able to catch the first week of this I haven't been available on on Thursday nights and I just got my my amulet today in the mail. So excited about that.
But I had a question about the black snow and it's an experience that I've that I've had, but my question is, I think the first time it happened, I freaked out and panicked. And then and then woke up.
And then slowly, like the next few times, it's happened maybe a handful of times. And I've been able to sustain it for a little bit longer, but I've never like come back into a dream. It always kind of just fizzles into me awakening in the bed. So I'm wondering, like how long do you stay there before you like what is the any advice on how to how to sustain it and then re manifest into it? Into a dream? Thank you. Okay, great. So so for some framework.
Eric called it the black snow. I sometimes referred to it as cosmic snow. And other people have called it the void.
The Matrix image lists lucid dreaming.
hyperspace reality. So these are some different terms that have come through of the experience in a dream and in a lucid dream where representational imagery breaks down and rather than just simply waking up, we find ourselves perhaps without a dream body just sort of visually taking in a space it could be it could feel vast or it could feel confined.
But there is essentially cosmic dust floating around right and so it could be you know, the snow of a, you know, the static of a TV set is the outdated metaphor that I use. So just that that sort of, there can be dots and in flux of light and color, it can organize it can become more like sake almost like sacred geometry of a sense. It can look fractal.
It's a femoral, right. And so it is sort of a place between places, I think of it almost as
is like CS Lewis's Narnia, where where, I don't know if you'll I've read this recently because I read it to my kids recently.
It kind of holds up so the parts that do hold up, there's this world between worlds that they go to the shoulder and they go, you know, into this world where it's forests with pools of water on the on the ground, and each pool leads to a different world. And so it's just this like, almost like waiting station or this Yeah, you know, with the world between worlds and so I can sort of see this image this lucid dreaming or the void in that light, and it's not a void in the sense of say in using Buddhist language is not a non dual space, necessarily. Some people do feel a breakdown between self and other others.
They just, it's more like I me and I'm observing things right and so that's, that's my sort of default perspective. I'm a pretty dualistic guy.
Normally, and so in so it's got a lot going on, but nobody really has done any interesting like, say neuroscience research on what's going on. Is this hypnagogic experience.
What's the brain doing AI there's, there's nothing that I know of that it's really correlated these things. And so it is unstable.
It can lead to awakening.
And the only thing I can say, for as long gating the state or to stick with it is sort of the similar to advice that's general use for lucid dreaming, which is to not get too excited, and to not hyper focus.
Because those two things can lead to awakening and sort of take it all in and assume a position of surrender or waiting. Kind of like one would do if you're in a meditative state, and you're just letting things emerge and not necessarily following it just like oh, there's this and then it sort of drifts off.
That for me, has a long gated it in but what tends to happen is is that it does generally for me is I'll wake up number one, or I will move into a new dream a new dream book will constitute. And that's a very interesting phenomenon. And that's what my master's thesis was about was what is what happens when you sit in a weight in the void.
And what happens is the dream reconstitutes and if you don't have an intention about where you want to go, where do you end up right, you know, and so that's the question.
And yep, so that's really all I can really say about it is that just general patience. Don't get too excited, don't hyper focus.
In the one caveat to that is is that sometimes when the imagery does begin to self organize, you can focus your intention and it can become like a vortex and so it can go three dimensional and become like a tunnel effect.
Very cool, very trippy, and that can lead to sort of like an out of body experience or pop you into another dream. as well. So that's something that I've written about.
Someone who's really been talking about this a lot recently is Claire Johnson. The Dream worker Claire Johnson. She's been giving free workshops to on the topic. of portals and lucid dreaming really fun stuff.
Nice. That's great. Thanks, Ryan.
Yeah, thank you. That was a fun question.
Yeah, so what else is coming up y'all any any other experiences or thoughts before we couple more hands up? Let me get very muted.
We are in the barrel. Okay.
Hi, good evening. So I just wanted to share that I did have a talisman experience that I relate to using the talisman and it's pretty good. I'm not gonna go into full details, but it was I had gotten to a point and I take llanthony and also so I'm a regular Galantamine user.
But for a couple of years, I've been trying to manifest a certain deity. And so I one night I struggle a few days ago. I had the talisman and another tells me that I'm using my bear claw. And so I got up at a certain time and I said, I will not take no for an answer. And that's I've done that a couple of times where I just get to the point, and it's like my secret weapon. So I'll get to a point and I know, it's about maybe six in the morning. And I think taking Galantamine earlier and I got the Taos minutes, I'm not going to take no for an answer. I'm going to see this particular deity. And sure enough, I went into a dream and had the experience and for the first time in two years, I've been trying to manifest this for two years. So that was really really special. I had another one couple of days after just it was almost like Eric's the way Eric was describing his and so it was good. So I thought using the Towson was a very useful thing. And you do have to know your own body. That's so important. Like when you listen to other folks, it's good because they give you a parameters of what's available, but everybody's going to be a little bit different. And whatever, whenever you find out what works for you, like I found out also that if I if I get into a liminal state, not to get up, but but to try and even not have to go to the bathroom, try and go back into bed and try and use that liminal state to get back into sleep. And then once you get into sleep, then you can dream again, because the liminal state really is ideal for going back to sleep, so when we wake up, at least when I wake up, and because I don't have to get up, I'm retired. So I don't have to get up. So I can always just make myself go back to sleep. And that's important. So not to have any just because I'm opening my eyes and I can remember trying to think about my dreams. I just wanted to share that. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I'll have more dreams related to the talisman and my specific intentions. Nice.
Thank you for that. Sure. Not very I wonder if you'd be comfortable in sharing a little bit more detail how you incorporated the talisman into this practice.
Oh, did he drop off? No.
I just couldn't.
I do a picture of the Deity and grow under my bed and I when I first got the towels and I did exactly what you said in the book. Now I've got a nice shrine room and I washed Washington saltwater used incense and smoke and everything. And then I have this bear claw that's that I have gotten that I've had for years that has kind of a special meaning I kind of put them under and I also put them both on a prayer wheel that I have that is motorized and so and I'm just trying to gather, gather those intentions. So it's important not to just just stick it there but just just have that intention by putting it in a position to do good for me, or help me do good for myself. So that that's all I did. And so every day when I wake up I take a talisman and put it somewhere on my shrine or something like that to try and keep that rhythm going. And then when they sleep, try and hook into it. So that I can say, nice, clear, thank you that's really parading their ritual objects, sort of like a ritual shrine in your bedroom and Howard Okay, thank you for that belief. There we go. burl.
I haven't got a talisman yet. I've actually got a bear claw that I find has a very strong energy around it and I haven't purified it yet or whatever I need to do to get it so that I feel comfortable with it. It's got very strong energy. But I did copy out the towel, the page that you put to write on and I put it under my pillow. And the very first night that I did that one of the things at the bottom of my list of things was how can I deal with this very low energy I've been experiencing lately? What do I need to do? Because I'd been to the doctor and stuff and it wasn't helping. And that night I had a I had a dream to make sure I got back and got some appointments with Chinese medicine. And then the next night, I had another dream where I had a team in my house, doing a deep clean and organizing everything for me because that's another thing with the low energy I've been struggling with. And then last night, I had another dream about this energy that I needed to look into essential oils, especially bergamot and things like that. So I'm going to work some more on this bear Clive kind of intimidates me I had when before but I gave it away to someone who I felt needed it more and this one I've I've got to do some more cleansing or something with it. Thank you Thank you for that. shares. It's it's nice to hear to hear your dreams and I love how you're honoring your dreams and with research and and taking it further in the waking world and that's bringing more dreams I love that. I love how dreams do that that continuity that is created as we as we keep honoring the dream and dreaming it forward.
Yeah
All right, let me get your muted Kimberly i How you doing?
Hi Kimberly. Hey, so yes, I didn't wasn't around for the first lesson. class but I was I came last weeks and I am I started fishing around from my old amulets that I had.
And I had given away one of my really precious, most precious ones, and was kind of like feeling really sad about that and and then what happened was, I went to the library and I happen to just I wasn't there for this purpose, but I ended up finding a book on stones. It's called the alchemy of stones and it goes not only into stones, but it goes a lot into just the you know a lot about psychology and the psychology.
You know, that talks about stone beings and so a lot like Embury one of my like, major intentions is to kind of manifest manifests this deity.
So yeah, a lot of things kind of came together. So whilst reading this book and then I remembered that I had a stone that was new, but it wasn't. It was very dirty when it came in the post.
And so I didn't wear it, but I did clean it so but I hadn't had it with me. So I fished that one out and I realized that this was like the next amulet that was meant to be I was meant to be amusing.
And so I did the kind of the cleansing of it and put it on and in the within the book it talks about stirring beings, which, you know, kind of like goes into pan psychism where everything is consciousness so it kind of like leads you to you know, tap into the consciousness of a particular stone. And anyway so it kind of like it was it's the meat became a container for the deity.
And so yeah, just kind of now working with that, but how it all just kind of everything came together without my like conscious purposing for it to happen. It just kind of came together within this last week all that happened. So for me, you know, it's not about lucid dreaming it's about lucid living as well. So these kinds of things, you know, like kind of live in this lucid reality. I suppose. It doesn't just have to be through dreams. So yeah, I just thought I'd share that. So if I went on for too long. No, thank you. Thank you for that share. And I'm gonna have to check that book out. It sounds fascinating.
Love this, the concept of the stone beans.
Stones is this as grandfather's right is we hear often in a Native American context holding holding the land holding the memory of the Earth, being alive and in being accessible to us in the waking world, and that's something that I actively look look for when I'm out hiking and I love stones. I live in the woods in Philadelphia, but we're right on the WISA Hycon gorge and so it's it's very It feels kind of Appalachian, right where I'm at. There's a bit of a foul. Line. And so there's lots of wonderful geology where I live right now and I just the stones make the character of this place and many places and yeah, you can look for that and feel that
lovely. i Yeah, any anything else? You've got time for one more if someone someone else has a comment or a question
I'm not seen anyone.
Great. Well, let's get started. So we're gonna read I'm gonna read and the book changes here shifts here a little bit because the first section of the book was kind of a grounding in the philosophy of lucid dreaming and a little bit of background in amulets and talismans and where they intersect right and in so this part now basically moves into my framework for teaching lucid dreaming that I've been teaching for over 10 years. This particular framework, and then some sort of prerequisite stage setting for moving into a lucid jury practice. And so some of this might, depending on how far we get tonight might seem very one on one for this audience and we'll we'll just have to see
how fast we blow through it. And as always, feel free to leave a comment in the chat and it will just be kind of organic about about discussion as we go along. So I'm going to start to read Musa townsmen forgotten lore here on page 26, on the chapter called immersion.
So, as a lucid dreaming teacher, I hear from a lot of people who wish that they could go lucid and more frequently. And when I ask what plan is being used to stir up more lucid dreams, they usually list off a dozen different induction practices. And at this point I already know the problems taking lucid dreaming tactics for strategy.
Tactics are specific behaviors that you enact to reach a goal. On the other hand strategy is your overarching plan of operation. How and when and under which circumstances to employ certain tactics. So strategy is big picture. Tactics are the nuts and bolts that holds it together.
So a lot of trouble with lucid dreaming induction today as it's practiced, is that very few people have a plan and I'm convinced this is why so many beginner lucid dreamers lose heart and so many others burn out trying too many lucid dreaming practices all at once.
This is a major motivational issue and it's hampered the lucid dreaming education movement. for a really long time. We're just not wired to pick up a dozen new habits when there's no guarantee of any discernible result within a defined period of time.
And so I just want to see from those who you have your camera's on a show of hands have you ever basically become after trying a method and not going lucid in a short amount of time? Did you lose motivation and never try again or lose interest in lucid dreaming for a while? Because it didn't work?
Yeah, I've seen some hands. Yeah.
Yeah. And what about Have You Ever Have you ever gone lucid after trying a bunch of tactics but are not sure. What exactly was the thing that worked?
Seen a couple there too.
Right. So these are two of the these are two of the things that there is a problem with with teaching lucid dreaming as well as incorporating it in for our own self like why and how often do we need to do these crazy things into what ends?
So I had mistake myself for years and it all came to head once when I stupidly staked my graduate school career on the ability to have lucid dreams.
I decided to write my master's thesis on lucid dreaming, not just studying the research, but studying my own lucid dreams, dreams that I hadn't had yet.
And so after my proposal was accepted, I thought I would be excited but I actually broke out in a cold sweat. What have I done? I thought, not only had I committed to writing about lucid dreams I hadn't had yet. But I had proposed a very specific and difficult protocol to follow in these dreams, when I do become lucid. So what if I couldn't pull it off? And so my fears turned out to be completely justified.
It was a disaster.
Within the first month, I only had two lucid dreams in which I had remembered that task which I hadn't intended to perform in the dream and I was trying to get like 10 in a very short amount of time. I was really trying to burn it up.
So I only had to and at this rate, I knew I'd never reach that goal. So I began to panic. And as I was doing all of my usual lucid induction techniques, I was doing it all I was doing reality checks I was doing journaling before bed I was doing wake before bed, I was doing all this stuff.
And so I thought maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself. I've seen this effect before, especially in classes or workshops, where there's a social pressure to perform instead of having more dreams, people just freeze up the dream lives go silent.
So in despair and frustration, I collapsed. The winter holidays arrived, ceasing all of my business and I was burned out.
And of course you know the next I was on vacation, and I had lucid dream after lucid dream, they just started to flow. It was almost comical. I felt like my dream life was playing a joke on me.
After the holidays, I started up the practices again, but this time I was more exacting about when I was trying to induce the dreams and I built a strategy based on what I had discovered spontaneously rather than always trying to have a lucid dream.
I followed a week or so a photo tent and then some time off.
This worked the combination of a structured induction time, followed by relaxation quickly gave me enough lucid to use for my research project.
Whereas the first five lucid dreams took the span of two months the next five took place and half that time. And so basically I doubled my lucid dreaming rate.
And I learned from this process that doing lucid practices is not enough.
The Lucid incubation must be focused. It must have strong boundaries, and just as importantly a time for resting. Built in.
And I named the strategy, lucid immersion.
So just like learning the language, the fastest and most sustainable path to lucid dreaming is immersing yourself in the culture of lucidity.
So that was that was sort of the aha moment for me and I've been a spontaneous since I was a child. When I do practices it increases but this was the moment where I was really able to really focus in and I would not say that I could have a lucid dreaming on call. I never I'm not really comfortable with that language, frankly. But it seemed like I had more than Africa before and I actually tested this another time in which I was traveling for a month and so I was this was I was in graduate school but I was still doing some archaeology and I was doing a volunteer trip down in Nicaragua for a month. And we were recording ancient rock art on the island of omae TFA.
For a woman's she was finishing up her her her dissertation.
And so this island is just it's like a talk about a dreamy place is the tropics. There's spirals and concentric rings and all this beautiful abstract geometric art carved into the boulders that dock this agrarian Island and I knew that I was going to have a really explosive dream life because number one culture shock number two I you know I speak a little Spanish but not a lot. So I knew that I would be essentially socially anxious, which is, you know vigilance of a sort and so that brings lucid dreams.
I would be sleeping someplace new. I wouldn't be in the comfort of a bed I would be right staying at a hostel. And all of these things I knew I knew that I was going to have lots of dream recall and so I decided I'm going to make this lucid dreaming Incubation Center using what I've learned with lucid immersion in in it did it worked, you know, so that was that was another aha moment for me.
Travel right like notice the time is when you're going to have great success with dream recall. And you can have a lucid immersion session kind of built in you can plan for it.
So that lucid immersion strategy and this is sort of it very quickly. It's a strategy for organizing how you go about learning to the dream. It's easy to incorporate a dream amulet into this press. The immersion method sets up a secure container of mindful and structured rituals that stimulates greater self awareness in waking life. And in the dream world. It differs from your ordinary lucid, duction methods and that it's time limited. It's flexibly focused on a few carefully picked practices and followed by a crucial period of relaxed intentionality.
So in other words, you got to know when to rest and avoid lucid Mt. You assemble your plan by picking a few life practices at a time and then you test them, right you took them you track your successes, and they share your results with you.
And so the core practice creating a secure container for lucid dream is to appear on the ground. It's about limiting your ordinary distractions for a period of three to seven days followed by a specific series of practices as you go through your daily responsibilities.
And those practices are this bread and butter practices that you already know right reality checks and journaling and all these kinds of things but you're choosing just a few of them at a time.
Finally, there's a definite ending to the immersion whether or not a lucid dream has occurred.
This gives your mind and your body a chance to rest and to let ordinary life seep back in.
That's what that specifically is what prevents the burnout is is that we just you know cut your losses. Take arrests, not a good time.
Stop. Stop grinding like lucid dreaming intention should not be a grind. This is not grind culture. Right the dream has nothing to do with that.
So the lucid talisman is a physical tool that can help you focus your own lucid immersion practice.
And here is it basically in see 12345 steps. How it works. You pick a few lucidity induction techniques discussed in this book or, you know, in this community set up the lucid sanctuary for a short but intense dream immersion of about a week.
Do the work and have fun. Take good notes as you go along.
Keep your dream journal up to date. And then relax your active desire and see what comes your way. Put your talisman away. This is also an essential part of the practice.
Next, take stock any patterns arise in the dreams or in your waking life.
Review your dream journal to locate new potential dream signs, clues that you are in a dream I discussed dream signs more in chapter nine.
And then when you feel your motivation rise again or after a dry spell, clear the path for another immersion and then mix up the components of your practice.
And so that's that's what it is and has a kind of a bit of a testing and doing especially Essential Science on yourself of what works. And how do you know what you know, you know, because you've tried these three things together. And so next time mix it up. What didn't work, you know, where was your resistance you maybe you're trying to some new practice and it just the energy is wrong or it's just doesn't doesn't work for you like you don't have to beat yourself up about that. Just move to another practice until you find kind of the right mix. And when you find the right mix. It's it's pretty awesome because that's where we get to the Goldilocks zone where, again, it's not exactly lucid dreaming on demand. I think very few people really succeed in that some do.
I'm not one of them.
But it does create this wonderful dream synergy where even if I don't go lucid, there's this increased communication between my waking self and my dreaming creative mind. There's an inner flow.
And so that's the emerging practice and I you know, I was thinking if y'all want to put into chat, I'd love to hear what your go to lucid dreaming practices are that you know have worked for you or that is sort of like this is this is the sweet spot for me.
So put that into chat what what has worked for you
Atlanta mean?
And well in very ways written that right before I made that question. I'm not sure but right Galantamine is for memory and not just for lucidity.
phyllanthus me and I consider just a such a powerful plant
saying, wake back to bed.
Me too.
That's a That's a good one for me. Me too.
And practices in the middle of the night.
are as close to a sure bet as I can get Galantamine and wake back to bed for me is about a serpent is I can get seeing a comment about intention.
Yeah, you can't you know, I love having a strong attention the intentional practices are probably you know, probably the some of the oldest and when it comes when I say old, not in a ancient historic sense, but in the history of lucid dreaming research Patricia Garfield's work with intentions was foundational for lucid dreaming.
I've seen being super lucid aware during my waking hours. Nice. Yeah, so like this is a waking the lucid living. The Lucid mindset as Robert Wagner has called it.
Stepping out of your comfort zone.
Stepping out of out of that automate, it's like yeah, because we were such sleep walkers during the day in our lives.
Meditation in the night.
That's a powerful practice. And Scott Sparrow has been talking about that for 40 years.
Of course, Tibetan Buddhists have been talking about it for 1000s.
Rehearsal that's a nice that's a nice one rehearsal so when I become lucid I assume this is what I'll do or this is my my intentionality
here's a nice one telling myself before I turn the lights off, I want to have lots of dreams. I want to remember my dreams. I want to impact are direct my dreams.
Nice. And so I would call that anchoring. A I would for me that's an anchoring of an intention to a ritual. That's a physical motion and activities. It's repeatable I think that that meets the criteria for ritual
that lucid mindset that hour. I'm not really sure what that what that is that that sounds like something that could be unpacked.
Having a dream goal. Yeah. So the right intention, the right goal. Those are the things that make it through. Those are the things that make it through the phase
more intentionality.
Seeing reality checks, Am I dreaming? Reality checks? Good, good. Yeah, this is awesome. Thank you. I think this is this is great. So yeah, so you know what's interesting about these tactics is right is that we've been doing this stuff for a long time.
And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Right. Like there's a frustrating level of, of it not working. If we you know, there's not a
there's no magic pill and Galantamine is is as close as it comes to the magic pill but when it comes to intentionality when it comes to these practices, we still have we still have issues with it. It's still difficult.
And I think I spoke about this a little bit last time about how the scientific and verification of lucid dreaming created a an expectation that we can have lucid dreams on demand and that we should should buy to have that and we should have that expectation on on on a night by night effect. And I think that for for most of us who live our lives this is this attitude can be harmful. I think that was frustrating perspective to hold in maybe an unrealistic perspective to hold and it's it's easier, much easier on your psyche much easier on your constitution. If you can sort of relax those intentions into a week long period. And keep your intention for a week as it ebbs and flows as it naturally will and that a week being three days or five days, right?
Because what happens is that the Dreaming is slow. It's a slow slow, we're not going to grind
Alright, I'm gonna keep reading here. These notes, these chapters are short. They're meant to be they're meant to be short. This one is on dream recall. So we're now moving into foundational skills for or I would call prerequisites for lucid dreaming.
So the number one thing you can do to invite more lucid dreams is to increase how many dreams you can clearly remember this dream recall.
Having good dream recall is the best indicator for success and realizing that you are dreaming how many dreams do you need to remember to be a powerful lucid dreamer? It's not as many as you'd think. Around four to seven dreams a week for in general, a dream a night. And so if you had if you remember four to seven dreams a week, that is considered high dream recall.
So does that kind of lower the bar a little bit of like, you know, I bet you that that's true for most of the folks in the space you're already in the top 1% of dream. Recall errs. If you remember four to seven, an idea this is what this is. This is powerful.
I think we put too much too much pressure on ourselves to remember everything that we experienced and it's just you know, unless you are literally meditating all the time and you live a life that you can do that.
Consciousness 24/7 isn't going to happen for most of us and that's okay. And it's okay that the dreams aren't remembered and they still happen and they are still doing whatever they do.
So if you don't remember that many dreams The good news is that increasing your recall is pretty straightforward. In fact, the easiest way to increase your dream recall is to make a habit of recording your dreams. In a dream journal. This builds bridges between the two worlds the dream world and the waking world. So here's some tips for keeping a dream journal.
Keep it just for dreams, no other purposes, especially if you're just starting out. No recipes or phone numbers or to do lists.
So the journal can be fancy it can be leather bound or it can be spiral bound notebook that you pick up a degree store. Whatever you choose, just make sure you feel comfortable with it and that it feels inviting to you.
Alternatively, you can digitally record your dreams. The advantages are it's easier to search for themes later, as well as to share your dreams with others.
In fact, I'll stop right here if anyone has any recommendations for Dream apps. I'd love to hear what your recommendations are because this is something this is always changing. And
if it's helpful for me, it's probably helpful for somebody else. So if you if you use a digital dream journal, put into the chat.
More tips keep the journal or your mobile device on your nightstand or close at hand when you go to bed. Notice it before you go to that and set an intention such as I want to remember my dreams tonight. And you know if you do usually use a mobile device as your dream journal, let's say if you're doing transcription or you're you know speaking your dreams into an app or something like that.
I really recommend that you go into airplane mode while the phone while you're sleeping.
And I'm not even speaking from a physiological perspective and the Wi Fi and all that stuff because I can't really speak to that. I just know that when my phone's off, I'm not expecting that it's going to be taking signals in I relaxed a step further.
And so it could be that you put if you're, you know, nervous about you know, missing in a protocol of course, you set a handy feature of emergency numbers and like don't put it on, put it on Do Not Disturb and you've got the two people that can get through to you. It there's a thing that happens if we become calmer when we know that we can't be reached
so you can also kick start your dream recall by rereading your dreams from the night before as you settle down to sleep.
Journal after you wake up if possible, immediately before getting out of bed. If you can remember just a few impressions, jot them down. If you're pressed for time, which is always my case, make it easy on yourself and write down a few phrases that will jog your memory later. And so just like what's the most powerful image that came through or the most powerful emotion that came through? Maybe it's just a color, maybe it's just an interaction. If you write down that piece of it, and then come back to it later, it'll all flesh back out maybe not to the degree that it would have had you written it down just when you woken up but you'll still get the core gestalt of the dream.
So if you're like me, and you have to continue it later, continue it when you're in the morning, hopefully, usually at a time when you would read the paper at breakfast or on the train on the way to work are at your lunch break. Basically whenever you have the time.
And in general you want to flesh out the most striking images and the most emotional bits about recording every impression on those super detailed dreams. There's definitely a point of limited returns.
Be truthful to yourself about how the dream events work together. Be conscious of the desire to make a tidy story.
This is called the narrative effect when we adapt the dream memories into a single story after awakening. For example, if you're confused about whether something did or didn't happen in the dream, write down both impressions.
And that's something that came from Jeremy Taylor. He used to talk about how he would sometimes have dreams and he was like I'm not sure if it happened this way or that and maybe it happened both. Maybe there's sort of like you know shorting his dream right and so you just if you remember it both ways, write it down but
title your dreams this also is from Jeremy Taylor.
Descriptive and you know, short titles were best. It makes it easier to identify a specific dream while you're scanning your journal later, and sometimes hidden puns emerge when I'm thinking about a dream title.
Lastly, don't lose heart if it takes a week or even a month to remember your first dream fragment. After choosing a new dream journal. Be patient with yourself and keep the journal in plain sight on the nightstand. And if you haven't previously remember to dream for say over a year. Just know it's gonna take some time to reawaken this dream recall
some stuff now, so I'm seeing handwritten journal I'm seeing Apple Watch to record dreams. That's cool.
I started experimenting with the dream app called Dream well a couple of weeks ago tickets dream well be well might be the website.
Melissa, could you check that check that for me?
It it's it's it's a great app because it's it's created by a really good dream worker. And he also has a focus on mindfulness and dreams. And so I think that that would be pretty cool for this community as well. He he has it's a freemium model. So you know, you can take a couple of guided meditations for free and I think he's got some stuff that's for purchase. I'm not really sure about that. But what I do know is that if you enable notifications, it it tells me you know, I put in when am I going to bed in about an hour before bed. He puts in this thing the notification comes up. It's about time to start, you know, getting ready for bed or sort of like moving down into sleep. And so there's that power down hour this idea that giving yourself an hour or so to move into sleep in a slow in a slow way.
Great, thank you. Thank you Barry for putting the link in.
Dream well be well.
And I think dream will be well.com as well. Is is the website for that.
And it has another notification in the morning.
Right after you wake up. You know what did you dream last night and then about an hour and a half later? Another notification. There's still time to remember your dream and so just like these little like hints Oh yeah, like it's not totally a lost cause. Yeah, right.
Oh, the only thing I would say about dream about dream recall when it comes to journaling is is that sometimes it's easiest to remember dreams when you're at your circadian low for the day like so for me. That's about 4pm I'm pretty dead about four to 5pm.
I try not to have phone calls at that time or you know, or be on the radio or something, you know, because I just know that I'm not going to perform as well. And I either do something active or I take a nap and this is also the time where if I were to lay down that the dreams come back very easily, because it's sort of like a state specific memory of sorts, right?
And so notice your own circadian rhythm. And you can see, you know, in fact you know, this as we move through our rhythms on a sort of 90 minute cycle of when we go into more artistic states and then back into focus states. Notice your artistic states notice when you are daydreaming or if you're at work, and then you kind of like phase out and start doing scrolling on Twitter. This is this is daydreaming energy right is you're passively taking in information. So you can upset the Doom scroll by doing doing a little close your eyes and see what dreams emerge. You're closer you're closer to your dreams at these times. And so these are you know, these little secrets you can discover about yourself once you start paying attention to it. And of course like for me I could make besides the in the middle I mean in the morning when I wake up. It's right before I go to sleep that I remember my dreams from last night. They just the right there. It can be it can literally feel them.
So I encourage you to play with that.
And just notice the ebb and flow of the dream world in waking life and and how it comes and goes.
And there's even a lucid dreaming practice you can make out of daydreaming to it which is self daydreaming. You can stay in say a date right now.
This is a is metacognition this is a, you know, sort of focusing our energy of being lucid in a imagination state. And so if you can become more lucid and hang on and not lose it right that stay in that Daydream stay in that that reverie you're building a skill of lucidity and it'll come in really handy. With hypnagogia as you're going into sleep and as you're coming out of sleep as well there is there sort of similar.
So I'm looking at the time it's almost the top of the hour and questions and comments and discussion. And then it can be it for the night.
The spoke is coming back to basics about like about dream recall, Dream journaling
all this stuff what's coming up for you any any thoughts questions? I'm seeing one comment in the chat about experimenting. Oh, with Dream AI. It's interesting.
I like to have images that capture a significant moment in my dreams and grab the images online. If I can't find something I'd like aI successfully find someone for me. That's so cool. And then the image is there. If it's hard or unused crime. Wow, that's he has a blog up at Psychology Today. And he just a couple of days ago wrote an article about the pros and cons of AI for dreaming and he moves into some some of these these points about specifically using AI for dream interpretation. Like what's that going to look like? What does it look like now?
Well, it's really good.
The link is up. The link is up in the chat. Okay, so I'm not sure who had their hand raised first. I actually think it was Kathy let me get her unmuted.
Great, thanks, Alyssa. Yep, this Ryan has to do with something you you just now talked about, which is catching daydreaming. And it reminded me that I'm doing daily practices. Each day I'm I'm doing some Kagyu.
I'm doing one and a half to two hours of large sattva mantra practice right now.
lay in my practice. There have been incidences in the last two weeks that I thought I was dreaming and when I do when I do this much practice on a daily basis. I know my dream scape changes. And so at night, I'm actively I'm writing you know, I have a red light on my pen. So I'm writing stuff but you know, nothing.
Nothing significant really coming up. So that about really sparked something for me because I started coming up I thought, well during the day when I'm doing my monitor practice, like just focusing on what I'm supposed to be visualizing where if something else is going on this just as important. So do you have anything to say about that?
Could you would, could you repeat the last thing that you said in the OR?
It's not important or are just not sure what you meant? Oh, oh, love it. The stuff that I'm writing down from images that are occurring during the night in dreaming. Don't have a sense of
they're sort of okay, that's more of the same.
Ah, but some of the stuffs coming up during the day that are just that feel unlike mantra. So something else is going on here. And which abound with daydreaming, just spark.
Never. I've never heard that perspective. Yeah. So Well, I think that that that sounds like a really fruitful practice that you're doing and it sounds like you're moving into, you know, dream like reverie states while practicing meditation and embody meditation in that, so it's like maybe that's where you're dreaming mind is doing some most emotional processing and maybe it is just leftovers. For night. I don't know.
It's something of that nature.
Deep in that scene, the research about knowing that Andrew talked about so often that that that meditation and lucid dreaming commingle and so, and there's several ways of like, looking into that, but one is, is that if you look at the dreams of long term meditators, they have super powerful lucid dreams.
very archetypal dreams, non dual experiences things like as if you sleep or you have attached, you know, EEG is potaters and say, oh, you know, according to EEG, you're essentially asleep. And then of course, the meditator is Rouse and says, No, I'm just meditating. I was here the whole time, they could hear everything you were saying, you know, that I was just in a very relaxed, you know, state of mind. And so you know, so clearly like there's this this blend that happens. And so, some dream, researchers say, well, we should consider lucid dreaming, sleep meditation period, and that a Spontaneous lucid dream is sort of a spontaneous meditative state.
And so if you that right, then meditation itself can be seen as as having the same mechanisms and phenomenology as dreaming as dream states.
And, and of course, the traditions have different ways of working with what emerges.
You know, Don't be swayed by it or you're, you're navigating one way or the other with the emotional traces. There's all kinds that we have different traditions, spiritual traditions about that. So I'm not sure for you personally, like how the yoga nidra work, and I know very little about the tradition that you're speaking about, about the philosophy of how to work with spontaneous imagery. And so you know, do the practices enjoy the practices, but maybe it's, it's when dreaming is gonna be for you while you're doing these practices? Maybe that's where the juices Okay, that's great because us Lucky's do entre which is a cleansing practice.
It's a continuous practice and I know a lot of emotional stuff. is coming up.
But the way that it started appearing in last two weeks is dreams. It I've never seen this before. It's a dream state. And so what you said is it could be whatever cleansing practice I mean, it really is a conference going into a different realm. And it's a cargo to vasana practice and he goes straight into the embodied magic of vegetariana. And so this is it's interesting what you're saying. Thank you.
Connect some, some stuff for me.
Right. And what's interesting, of course, with this East Meets West is that when we say something is a dream, in a western context, it means that it's meaningless or it's it's not real, or it's, you know, that important and, and then in some Eastern contexts, you know, we there's dreams and dream images are also just, you know, forms of illusion that we need to not pay attention to and stay focused. And so the, of course, those two, those two polls are different. There's different there's, there's not the same nihilistic, like the western side has a kind of a nihilistic bent to it. Right? And whereas the, the emptiness and the focus of these is, it's not an emptiness is fullness, really, but And so, I always have to track my nihilism that still seeps in just to culture and the way that you know that we are in this world, that by calling something a dream or calling something a hallucination means that it's the quote unquote, not important or not real and it lessens its importance and so, but in many cultures and middle vision and a dream, and sometimes the same words are used. It doesn't, you know, dad, or did it have to happen when you were walking when you know run in in you know, struggle duress and you people have visions when they run, right there's there's a known thing. So yeah, it's just it's just interesting. I'm just to play with the, the notice what happens when we label something like the all the different contexts that come along with it. Yeah, great. Thank you.
Yes, so I'm seeing is a jerry
can you hear me? I can hear you Jerry. How you doing?
Oh, well.
Unfortunately.
Not Well, one of my best friends. You know, when I was in, you know, like, college grad school med school, and moved out of the southeastern Michigan area.
I lost touch with him. And this last weekend when I was visiting my sister who knew him.
He handed me a piece of paper that was his obituary.
And it
had been so depressed since then. I mean, this was one of the nicest guys you've ever met got along with everybody. Everybody. You know.
He also has a beautiful wife and and to read this was so shocking, that it's hard to sleep at night. But anyways, the point is Hold on a second Jerry, hold on a second. I'm so sorry for your loss. And I'm sorry for that impactful loss. And I just wonder if everyone here can take a few seconds and let's just kind of hold Jerry in his grief.
Whatever that is some love and support right? Now for a few moments in a break.
Thank you for sharing. Yeah, you can go on but I just wanted to let you know that. There's always time to to make that kind of share. You don't have to rush into your point.
So I was just wondering, is there something specific I can do to work with this?
In a dream in a dream context? Or awakened context? You know, like, I try as much as I can when I'm awake to say this is a dream. And like, I'll say, Okay, next time I see a traffic light, or next time I see something I haven't seen before. I will ask myself, Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? And several other techniques that you know, have come up on nightclub but I don't know what kind of technique to use with this. Yeah. So So working with you know, everyone's got their own process. If you have I'm on your side, feel like a burden.
It's really it's, it's a blessing to be able to have time.
And I found that especially for men, it can be difficult to process emotions, just a way that men are acculturated in this culture. I find that being active and taking on a project that's active that allows me to process is really helpful for me. So for instance, gardening, or I do stonework, or painting and so, you know, so in terms of grief processing, I always recommend an active approach if you're feeling sort of stuck, of course, reaching out to your community.
In a dream tax which is more really what I can speak to, you know, in this sense, I would recommend not trying to heavily push to have a strong intention at this time for Drizzy draining, but rather to let yourself rest and relax and just be open to what doesn't merge in its own time. And just be gentle with oneself to be gentle.
And so this I would not recommend a hard lucid dreaming push with supplements or wakefulness in the middle of the night and these kinds of things to to encourage dream because the dream is on when they're ready. And and that's the way that's the way that that seems to work.
Not sure if that's helpful, but that's that's what I would say at the outset.
What I say here is I've had, especially when I was young, not just lucid dreaming experiences, but other experiences like lucid boundary mean experiences and others that I'm not going to go into.
And I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that this western culture is this horrible, you know, hypnosis we're living under. And the thing is, throughout my life, there isn't anyone among my friends, relatives, whatever. We're interested in this stuff, at least.
As a matter of fact, one of my nieces who I just spoke to who I get along with very well.
She's one of the very few I know who who's had lucid dreams, but she said absolutely positively no value whatsoever.
And I feel like I'm, you know, in a world where I'm the only one who knows about this stuff.
And even when I mentioned to people you know, I've had this industry and they seem completely uninteresting.
I mean, this western culture is is it is almost like a death trap it seems to me Yeah. So I I agree with and I want it Yeah, like look around like everyone right in everything that he was just talking about about dreams and lucid dreaming and right here, like we are famous for this kind of went out home for Thanksgiving dinner. Nobody wants to hear about my shit. No one wants to hear about no one. My great aunt doesn't ask me about how my books are.
No, nobody cares.
You know it's past it's past the mashed potatoes and so so yeah, our families can't hold this, this our spiritual sides often and that's and that's that's sadly the way that it is. And so I'm glad you're here.
This is online communities and have been doing it for 15 years is because we need in this world because it is a bit of a hellscape and so and we have to create order and create community.
And we help each other by doing so.
No, I mean today once you know what I discovered nightclub, it was like 1000 or 10,000 times better than any other group or group of people or you know, just reading books about it. No, I mean, this is my number one favorite place to go on the internet.
So, thanks everyone out there from from the depths of my heart. This is fantastic and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
So I'll end my talk there a lot of other people have their say. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jerry. I'm really glad that you said that. I'm just glad that you that you spoke up in felt comfortable enough to to speak to yourself in a while in a motion then yeah.
Yeah, and I know if you check out the comments, Jerry because there's some comments here for you too, in the in the chat.
Let's see. Is it Kimberly? Well, I think maybe this will be the last or last comment for the night.
Sorry, yeah, my hand is up by mistake. Sorry.
Okay. Okay.
So
friends as we sit in emotion, notice how to honor our feelings come through how do we honor our experiences?
I especially when I feel alone, I journal like journaling for me is been my way to keep saying throughout my years.
So journal journal, your intentions.
Journal your desire for peace.
Journal, your intentions for a peaceful light ahead.
And I invite you in the week ahead before our next meeting to to just focus on the things that we talked about about dream recall, about journaling about kind of getting back to basics noticing when dreams are easier to remember noticing median lows, start paying attention to because this is going to help you with lucid dream practices as you deeper into them
