Okay. So here they come. All right from Amanda. Not necessarily oh yeah pause I almost forgot to pause Alyssa see I very short term memory from Amanda Hi. Hi. I have a long standing daily practice great initially terrified and and now it's like every other day he's a rockstar a love that guy would like to deepen my nighttime practice. Okay, good thing. Well, the retreat in Spain Okay, so that's part of the advertising. I'm doing several retreats. One in Spain, one in France and maybe one in a VITA, the Vita beautiful island in the Caribbean, maybe with a retreat in Spain just cover aluminum states. I do yoga nidra and lucid dreaming or go to Dream Yoga sleep yoga to Okay. It's gonna cover liminal dreaming yoga. Nidra lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga, not sleep yoga. Sleep yoga is pretty esoteric stuff. I don't do too many sleep yoga programs. But he will definitely do a liminal dreaming lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga for sure. Like you said, depending on the group. The really cool thing about this group is this is a the invitation came from a group of traders not traitors traders out of London, so it's going to be geared slightly towards the financial community business stuff. And originally when they pitched it to me, I was like, Okay, well, how can I really because he said, I want you to do something on Dream Yoga for these people. And I'm going geez, okay. So I had a really fun time talking to Alex about all this and so it's gonna be really kind of practical hands on a way to approach liminal dream principles with stress business, that kind of demographic and population and all the while doing the, you know, the classic standard liminal booth lucid dreaming kind of thing. Back to her I had an interesting experience with the debriefing. We did a prana Oh, so this is that on my end. I'm sorry, Amanda. This is my my British Amanda, who was at prana with me this question just came in, so I hadn't seen it before. Yes. So. Okay, so I know I know who you are. I had an interesting experience with the deep breathing. We did a prana Yeah, we did this really powerful kind of Shamanic breathing thing was awesome to have to come on tonight to discuss this. Cool. Well, if you come on, I'm here to talk to you, Amanda. Nice to hear from you. Okay, from Tanya. When I focused my mental awareness on different parts of my body, I soon become aware of heightened sensations in that area. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. No surprise there. Question. Do you know are there physiological changes happening in the capillaries are increased blood flow? Yes, for sure. Or is it prana that moves both. It's both. And I get the sense that you're sensing both. Remember the prompt is is more foundational, right? The subtle body font is associated with subtle body, the blood, the capillaries and all that that's gross body. So gross body is an epiphenomenal expression of subtle body like product. So the product is actually definitely working here. As is increased blood flow for sure. I'm very interested in knowing whether this phenomena is physiological physiologically measurable, for sure. Blood flow is Prana. No, not yet. Anyway, I mean, yeah, there's some anecdotal stuff, but there's no definitive studies that I'm aware of, of the ability to measure subtle body processes yet. So promised that measurable but but increased blood flow is for sure. I mean, with fMRI, that's kind of what they do, right? Functional magnetic resonance imaging. If this is physiological measurably physiologically measurable could focusing one's mental awareness. to a specific body part be used to signal lucidity? I'm asleep, every Tory. Sure, absolutely. But why do that? It's a lot easier to do what's already been done, Tanya, you could do that. But that's really subtle measurement stuff. You can do it with EMGs emojis. You can do it with what you say here. Firaon Dr. Ed mentioned this even the bearish clusters risk muscle, signaling repeatedly to signal lucidity. Could he have also focused his mental awareness on his wrist? Yes, he could. But how do you measure that? It's a lot harder. You don't want to have you know if MRIs are really expensive, it's a lot easier to do. EEG EMG Z O G's and that sort of thing. So you don't have to go through what you're saying is true. You could do it that way. But that's this is the more subtle marker. And why spend the money why booth subtlety when you can do it in easier kind of more gross ways. Do you know what type of equipment would be needed to measure changes? In the capillaries? Yeah, basically analogues to fMRI. But again, you know, I'm not I'm not like a full blown clinical dream user. And even then they have special people that come in and do these tests, irrespective of the scientists that actually implement them. So my reply to this is you can totally do that. But why why not use more classic ERGs electro ocular, you know, EMG electromyography, you can you can use the muscle thing you can use the eyes thing, you don't have to do this stuff. Okay. But theoretically, yes, you could definitely do it but why bother? Okay, from Wes, I want to do the visualizations, visual representations you describe in your dream Yoga Book. I've been having a lot of trouble visualizing things though. I have looked intently at an object like an apple, close my eyes and tried to see the apple but a lot of what I see is black. Is there a more basic step that I can start with? Well, one thing you might consider West is you may well be dealing with a Fantasia which is an inability to actually visualize or a great difficulty in visualizing. So it's not as uncommon as you might think. In fact, I the longer I'm in the business, and the longer I tool around, the more I hear about it, so this to me sounds like classic A Fantasia. Now, this doesn't mean you can't use the throat visualizations and whatnot. But then what you do is you transition from a visualization to a feeling isolation. Excuse me by this what I mean is, if you're working with a visualization at the throat, which is what I write about the Dream Yoga Book, if you can't visualize it, you can feel it. You can that's why when I when I depict it, you want to you want to feel the petals fluttering, you want to create sense of dimensionality, you want to get other senses involved in terms of registering visualization. Yes, it does use classically visualization as we know it. But it's really other senses are involved, other faculties are involved. But you may want to just be tested anyway, period. It's interesting. It sounds like could be classic A Fantasia look it up. Check with your PCP, your primary care physician, maybe visit with a neurologist and then see if in fact you're you're afflicted with that situation kind of sounds like it. But there are other ways to work with visualization. One is just the one I mentioned just working with a kind of somatic feeling isolation approach. You can still do it that way for sure. It's not it's not in any way handicap from Patrick Patrick. I brought the power and pain Okay, that's my first book. I like the typo here, Patrick. I bought power in the pan. This book is not about pans, man. It's about pain. Sorry, I like to I like to dance with my people. I brought the power in the pan. Okay, while we're in the pain and preparing to die last week. Thank you for doing that. That's really cool.
Do you recommend that we preorder the reverse meditation book? Hell yeah. That's my next book coming out. Right talk about shameless self promotion are the damn thing. Because if we get 10,000 people I get on the New York Times bestseller list. Did you realize that you have to have at least 10,000 people to get on that if you get it on the first week. You get on the New York Times bestseller list. And I actually talked to I talked to a friend. I mean, check this out. I don't know if it's true, but I trust this person. She says she knows of a guy. You give him $100,000 He'll get you on the New York Times bestseller list. Right. It sounds like the little scam I got ripped off on my I get I gotta take him for a little ride on the website this week. A little humbling experience. Whether I know the $100,000 and the New York Times bestseller. It's probably true, but I don't know. So do you recommend it? We preorder it sure Patrick if it speaks to you that I would be honored if you ordered it. Thank you for the thought are waiting nearby when it comes out in June. Whatever works best for you. The pre ordering does help honestly, it really does. That just this week, I had my marketing meeting and all that stuff. It's kind of amazing these days, you know, for writers, those of you who are writers, you know, it's not like it used to be if you don't have social media, if you don't have your own team if you don't have it, whatever. These publishing houses don't do anything. Well, not quite I shouldn't say that. That's not quite true. They don't do as much as they used to, but so much rests on the author these days. It's a lot of work. You said recently I had some health issues those health issues are all resolved. Thank you for asking. Any healing prayers and meditations? No, thank you. I appreciate that. But I'm okay in that department. I really appreciate that. All right when I first heard instructions on Okay, so first of all, you're just comments. Thank you, Patrick. for your very kind words about ordering my books. And if you want to look into the reverse meditation book that we wouldn't be honored if you would do that. That'd be cool. Thanks for asking. Okay, Michael, since retiring from a successful career last April, good for you on both fronts retiring and being successful. I have been having almost lightly dreams about stressful work situations. No surprise. That's me. No surprise. These dreams are always a mish mash up of every job I've had over 40 years. I would like to learn how to have some control over my dreams but I only recently joined nightclub i have a spiritual practice that includes daily meditation and volunteer constantly with people with terminal illness. Oh, good for you. Wonderful for doing all that. Okay, Michael. So in terms of the controlling the dream thing? Yes, sure. There's a bunch of things you can do. Let's start with some daytime stuff. When you're really working to control it was talking about this notion of control altogether. It's an interesting word in the contemplative traditions and also in the dream arena. When we talk about control start with the daytime mind because remember, the maximum I use is that thoughts are to awaken consciousness as dreams are to dreaming consciousness. So basically, our control or lack thereof, over dreams is directly related to our control or lack thereof of the contents of our mind during the day. So one of the best things you can do to learn how to control your dreams and again, What are dreams made outright dreams are made of your mind. So in a real way, you what you're saying here is I would like to learn how to have some control over my mind. That's really what you're asking. So if you want to learn how to control your mind, meditation, then it's like the best meditation. And this is also where it gets really interesting because during the day and night, you can control your mind in a number of different ways. Because meditation has a number of different applications to the way you relate to your mind on one level. You can control your mind with space. I love this end of it. You just basically mix your mind with space classic meditation, especially open awareness meditation during the day in the inner control your mind by making it open, spacious, relaxed, and so therefore it's a it's a type of control intimated by what Suzuki Roshi said, in his classic book Zen Mind, beginner's mind, where he said if you want to control a herd of cattle, don't put them on a corral. Give them a pasture. That's really beautiful. So if you want to control your mind, control it with space, in other words, control your relationship to your mind, right? That's the most important thing. Now that does not mean that you're unable or it's not beneficial to work with controlling your dreams. I'll get back to that in just a second. But sometimes this whole idea of mind control, it can backfire on you because on one level, this is really, really important, especially in terms of things like free will, and all this kind of gets really deep. On one level. You can't really control what arises in your mind. I mean, try, right I mean, try get back to me. Try to control what arises in your mind. Yes. Temporarily, you can must let down. But you can't really control the arising of the contents of your mind, at least indefinitely. And the contemplative traditions would say you shouldn't even try. I mean, it's like little rapists things or whatever songs you know, the play of the mind cannot be stopped with hundreds with spears. That's not the point. The point is to control your relationship to the arising, that's the key here. And that control is brought about by this space, this ability to actually relate to your mind instead of from it. That's the control. So during the day, you want to control your mind during the day with this meditative approach. And it's a little bit like saying, Okay, this is another analogy is a little like saying, Okay, I want to control the weather. I want to control the clouds that float through the sky. Why? Why do you why do you want to do that? Let the clouds come and go, let the weather come and go. Don't try to control it, control your relationship to it. So with that said, then that proficiency will extend into the dream arena and then you can engage in kind of lucid dreaming Dream Yoga in particular, where yes, at the first you know, stages two through seven. You there is some kind of control in a tantric sense where you work with transforming the contents of your mind. So control there does come into play. And if you're interested in that stages, two through seven of Dream Yoga all about that. They just eight or nine or more about what I talked about earlier, but even then, in what's called a pellucid Dream, which is a witnessing awareness dream. You're lucid in the dream. You're fully aware of the fact that you're dreaming but you simply elected just watch. That's the type of control. You're now relating to the dream content instead of from it. So basically, Michael, you want to do this? Meditate. Work with shamatha passionate meditations work with open awareness. That proficiency will naturally extend to the dream arena that will help you alter your relationship to your mind as it expresses itself during the day or at night. And then really, the most important thing is control your mind with space. Not this kind of muscular control, right? Don't do that way too tight. And then control your mind in the sense of relationship. Relationship. That's the key. Okay from kte. In his commentary to the sixth yogas of Naropa Tsongkhapa says okay, so Naropa is one of the great ciders and simply in the cardio tradition. Tsongkhapa was the founder of the gay Looper tradition. And one of the first things I say right off the bat, Katie is if you're on the line who translated this? Because a lot of times and you'll see well, I'll say more about this. A lot of the issues come about by the way, translators work with these texts. So if you're here and can tell me who translated this, it will help me so apparently Tsongkhapa says amazing DeLuca master cooked this practice I mean, I suppose this practice is Dream Yoga, but you don't tell me this practice involves controlling the contents of beyond the world dreams. I suspect that's Dream Yoga. If it's not let me know. This involves consciously projecting oneself in the dream state to the various Buddha fields such as sukawati to Sheeta Akanishi and so forth. And so this is why wonder misses me talking. who translated this because Tushita and akinesia are not Buddhafield they're God realms. So that's one little little difference in translation or booboo. It's not a Butterfield sukawati is a bit of field to sheet as a is a heaven God Realm. I condition as a God Realm. They're not the same thing. God realms are just the best of samsara. You're still in samsara. Buddha feels like sukawati or trans samsara you're beyond samsara. So right there, there's already like that quite right. At least the way I understand it. So back to Tsongkhapa while they are meeting the Buddhas and bodhisattvas yes, you're going to do that and sukawati You will not necessarily do that into sheet that I can teach them. You're going to meet other gods there and you're not going to be the Buddhas and bodhisattvas Dr. Hugh, venerating them listening to their teachings and so forth. Yes. Beautiful. So what you do in the pureland In fact, the pure realms experienced by those initial stages that are pretty advanced initial stage are merely reflections of the real thing. It is not that easy to experience the actual pure dimensions. Okay. And, quote, what parties,
Glenn H Molan? Yeah, I figured I thought it was Glenn. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, I know. I know, this text I have in my library back here. I thought it was Glenn. He's great, by the way, but I don't know that Tibetan and I don't know how we translated it so that again, it's amazing. This translation thing is a big deal. This is why I have so much respect for the really heavy duty translators. And I'm not saying Glen is not that he's a really great guy. But I have a lot of very, very close friends that are really lifetime dedicated translators. And the amount of work study practice involved being authentic translation is huge. This whole idea of Lost in Translation is a real deal. So again, I don't know the Tibetan here, but I can tell you to Sheeta Agnieszka to cavity they're not the same they're not they're not pure realms. She cavity is these others aren't. Okay, back to you what might be the difference between mere reflections and the real thing. Okay. And differences between the reaching them between differences between the ways of reaching them, okay. Well, again, it's a little bit difficult to say I would like to know what the word mere reflection and real thing is it Nitara ne artha. I mean, what Nadan Trumpian, provisional, definitive, I don't know which terms are translating, and that makes a difference. So the real thing, the difference between let me just tell you what comes to mind, Katie, the difference between mirror reflections and the real thing to me suggests the difference between appearance and reality, right. And so again, this is something that's been talked about for 1000s of years going all the way back to Plato and the cave Allegory of the Cave boy back department. DS. David Bohm contemporary physicist talks about it is you know, he talks about it as a difference between the implicate and explicate order. Kant talked about it as the difference between noumenon phenomena. I mean, there are literally dozens and dozens and dozens of thinkers, philosophers mystics for 1000s of years, who have talked about this difference between relative and absolute reality. So that's the way I read this mirror reflections, relative reality. The real thing, absolute reality. Any differences between ways of reaching them well, you've already reached mere reflections. You're living in the world of appearance. You've already weeks that right. The real thing Yeah, that's the spiritual path, cutting through mere reflections mere appearance to the underlying nature reality but no below beneath the hide it in many ways. That's what spiritual suggest in contradistinction to the physical or the mystical. It's basically intimating cutting through a mere appearance into reality behind it. So that's probably the best I can do it this year, unless you want to come on and say some more about it after I finished these questions. But this is this is where I run with it. It's somewhat a translation issue. Difference between your reflections in the real thing that's the difference between relative and absolute truth. We live in a world of relative truth you've reached that don't worry about reaching out, that's where you live. That's where we all live mere reflections. The real thing, discovering that literally discovering uncovering, that's the cycle spiritual mystical path. Going from mere appearance to reality. You know, another way really more sophisticated way to do this. The you know, the absolute relative truth thing is very powerful. But the yoga Chara you know how much I love that tradition. This is where the three natures come in. You have para Tantra, you have Pyro Inishmaan at absolute nature perfectly pure nature are attached with the dependent nature and party culpa the imaginary nature. So if you really want a centrifuge out this study the three nature's on the yoga Chara, okay. From Carrie, Hi, Andrew, do you think that learning astral projection can help a person prepare for death? Absolutely. Yes, Nelson's. Let me just finish this and then I'll say something and put on both my somewhat skeptical scientific hat. And then my more believers hat because I think you have to tread a careful line here here. Very back to you. It seems that practicing intentionally letting go of one's body while astral projecting could help a person release attachment to their body during the dying process. For sure. Absolutely. And if you can't do that, take psychedelics like eating honestly. Stan Grof work with this. He's the man here MD PhD. He's been working with this for 60 years. He's not I mean, read his book, The ultimate journey. He's He's He's led at this point. 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people remove all their fear of death by working with psychedelic agents in particular, his his area of expertise is LSD. And so, I would honestly, if you don't want to do meditation, which is by far the best thing to do, I mean, the meditation journey is all about this. psychedelics are a quick, easy way to do it. The issue there is stability, but it's totally viable. Here's the thing about the astral projection deal. For sure if you can practice authentic out of body experiences, and again, this is you know, stage seven and Dream Yoga, my stage seven this is definitely a legitimate part of the wisdom tradition, that's for sure. And fortunately, unfortunately, it's also part of the New Age stuff. And so again, with all due respect to the wonderful people Monroe Institute, and people who really work with this, and I know a lot of people who do I would be a little careful here. So let me I'm just gonna put a little bit of my skeptical scientific hat. Because even though I do believe completely, and I've had some experiences, but this this whole out of body astral projection thing. My skeptical hat is there's not been one that I'm aware of that I'm aware of. If there's somebody out there who can correct me, I will be humbled and corrected. You know, there is no definitive scientific study. And yes, do we have to bring everything down to science? No, we don't. But when people make these claims, and here's the deal, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And so the extraordinary claims are oh, okay, I can do this as a projection. I can go across the world or whatever. Great, fine. Well, if you can do that, you should be able to be tested. You should be able to be put into a lab and I know some of the stuff they've done this the work of remote viewing it. Oh, where is it? Oh, again, these books are all on my shelf back here. I have read a ton of these things. There should be really a way to systematically rigorously study the authenticity of astral projection, and to the best of my knowledge, and if somebody out there knows better please correct me, send me to these studies. That hasn't been done. So usually what happens and again, Evan Thompson writes about this beautifully in his rigorous book, waking, dreaming being self, Nero self unconsciousness and neuroscience meditation and philosophy. He has a really great chapter on auto body experiences with a ton of studies a ton of research. He's a very smart guy, and I really agree with with his provisional conclusion, which is that most out of body experiences astral projections are altered embodiments they're not naturally not out of your body is altered embodiment. And they can do this with haptics. They can do this with Dr. They're doing some really clever things with VR. They can bring about a sense of outer body experiences. It's just altered embodiment. And so yeah, if you're into that kind of stuff, and it helps you dislike your exclusive identification with form, do it, go for it. Fantastic. I just get a little slightly skeptical around some of the claims of people who teach this say they do it all the time. Usually when I asked him a number of questions, I can suss out pretty quickly that what they're talking about is an out of body experience is basically a hybrid lucid dream. And there's ways to test this by the way this can be tested. The other gal who writes about this beautifully is what's her name Blackburn. Karen said her name used to be a purse psychologist now psychologist out of Britain really sharp gal. She writes about this really beautifully in her book with Ivana bears edited with Jane Kobach and stable bears called something like bleeping brain waking mind or something like that. That one may be out of print, but after reading both of those contributions by Karen and Evan, I don't know these are really clever people really smart people using really powerful logic. They just made a lot of sense. So I don't mean to bust your bubble. If this stuff works for you go for it. Who am I to say that it doesn't work? I've just heard from talking to a bunch of people who do this they're not having astral projections, they're having hyper lucid dreams. But either way, even with a hyper lucid dream. The point here is I read it Kerry is that anything that can dislodge exclusive identification with form body psychedelics, but never do it. The rest of it is a sidebar commentary and that's just me. That's just my silly opinion. Okay, well, yeah, well, lots of questions. These are awesome. Almost done. I don't have frequent lucid dreams or I recently had one I remember to try to walk through walls, which I did. That's very cool. That's like stage two. And yoga. Look at my hands. I remember something recommended that and they did mount and I did mountains from my advisory practice. I'm not sure what that means. But one time I was floating in the clear sky and I thought at that point and my dad I've had I've had experiences like that as well. My question is,
how do I know what the borrower experience be like this? How do you distinguish? Great question, William. Yes, the Bardo experience is definitely like this. And that's why Guess what? Dream Yoga is a concordant experience of the Bardo of becoming. So if you want to get a sense of what it's going to be like to be in the Bardo really work with lucidity and the dream. Well, let me share this dream. Oh, this is a good one. This just came to my mind. This is I was in my three year retreat when I had this dream. So I was having tons of these things. And I had I think I shared this somewhere along my I had a particularly bizarre dream. I mean, it was just weird. I've had a lot tons and tons of lucid dreams. But this one was just different. And and I just couldn't tell us it's like this man. This is just this this dream is weird. So I was lucid and there were all these other beings and entities walking around me in this kind of it was kind of an airport thing. Had airport kind of vibe. And then finally I didn't have sense in a lucid dream to actually ask one of the people whatever agents coming by in the dream and by the way, I talked about this in my conversation with Ryan Hurd this week, you know, the agentic nature of characters in the dream. Are they really just in your mind or are they coming in from outside? I talked about that with him. So this person is whatever I can remember male female comes by and I just stopped him and asked him like, Excuse me What is this? Where am I? And basically, without stopping a step, this person said to me, you're in the Bartos. And I was like, Oh, wow, cool, right. This is like this is cool. Was I in the Bardo? I don't know. I don't know. So this is this is a really great question. Well, it's actually not that easy to tell when you're actually in that space. There are some texts that talk about it jumping onto a ledge lodo ties, treasury of knowledge there are some volumes that talk about the classic death signs and dream signs and when I was reading these, and those again are with their back, if you gave me five minutes, I could pull on their bookshelf right here. When I pulled those that literature out, I read it and call it a quote loaded load your tie. He gives His 10 classic death sign experiences. I went through that and I said Man, these are dream signs this these are exactly the same phenomena that can take place on a dream. And then I said to myself, just like you're saying, How can you tell the difference between death energy? Well, one is the level of clarity. And again, I don't remember my Bardo experience all that well. But when you're in when you're in a in a dream, it's going to be a concordance experience of the bar to becoming if concordance is similitude. It's not the Bardo, becoming, you're not dead yet. All the product is still in your body. You haven't been translocated in that way. And so therefore, it's concordance. It's not exactly the same. So what I understand from the literature is is going to be less clear, less articulate, more foggy, more disjointed in the nighttime dream than at the dream at the end of time, and again, that's the way they talk about the Bardot's the dream at the end of time. So allegedly in the Bardo after death. It's going to be like a dream. But But I wouldn't say more real, I would just say more clear. And also one of the characteristics of being in the bar to becoming is you're going to pop one of the reasons it gets again, I don't remember but this is what the literature is. is you're gonna pop from being in your in your Bardo dream MindScape thing, you're gonna pop back into this dimension. So that's one way to tell. And this is the classic thing first, especially three weeks after you're dead. First of all, you're not going to know you're dead. It's going to be very much like a non lucid dream, but one of the things they say that tends to happen very powerfully, is people will come back. They come back to their haunts their favorite places, they come back to their people. They come back, you know, to loved ones. There's all this. There's all this stuff for the first three weeks where they're coming back to this dimension to this planet and they're hanging around. If they don't let go and continue to hang around, they become literally a ghost. What's called up Mondo Maya made of mine again Tarbuck and they they just get stuck in his Bardo. But eventually what happens is they will start to eventually lose level of connectivity to this study on the three week mark, they'll start to transition into their next whatever incarnation will be, but that's what makes the Bardo so so disjointed. Right, there's your your your inner dreamscape, and then they come back, flip back and you're here. There's also no day or night as we know it, there's just as mine haze, just like a dream. There's no sun and moon just like in a dream. So this is a really great question. And, to the best of my knowledge, these are some of the characteristics that will help you distinguish them. But here's the most important thing is that if you become really familiar with the dreamscape, which is what you can do now, and you start to understand, well, this is okay, I'm in a dream. This is the typography This is the kind of MindScape This is what your dream is really like. Then you'll actually have that increased reference point when you actually do get into the Bardo. And the most important thing is the lucidity you know, whether it's in the Bardo, whether it's in the dream at night, or whether it's now in this dream. This is the third type of dream. This is a dream. The most important thing is lucidity slash awareness, that there's definitely a very profound relationship between the nocturnal dream and the dream at the end of time. So I hope that helps. Good question. Okay from dry Gary, but without the A I like that. Actually. Let me get these other two first and then I'm gonna get to yours because yours is a little bit longer. Okay, from Braden, what were your first few thoughts directly after waking from your first lucid dream? Oh, dude, I can just take a guess. But there's been like, decades and decades ago. Probably something like wow, that was wrecking awesome. I can't remember let's just say it was that okay. Wow, that was freaking awesome. That's what I said. I don't remember man. Probably something like that. And even to this day, I wake up from these dreams. I had one. In fact, one day did this. Tell us one thing we you'll hear with with Ryan Hurd? Every time I do the talisman thing under my pillow I have on and so I wake up even been doing this for decades. I wake up from these dreams and I was like, I was freaking awesome. So I still say that right? Decades later. That's why I love this stuff. Okay, from Diane can two or more people share a lucid dream together? Depends on who you ask. You talk to Stephen the bears and other scientists and I love Stephen. He say no. He would say and others would say more scientifically, people would say no. What people think of as shared dreams, what he says are usually shared themes. I think there's some credibility to that. However, I have talked to a ton. This is one of the really cool things about traveling around and actually hanging with people like you either here or in person. I have talked to a ton of people over a long period of time. People I really trust that wouldn't have no reason to lie to me. They would say absolutely positively. We set this agreement up in advance. We would meet here we had this dream we wake up the next morning we write it down we get on the phone, we talk about it and we go yes, that was me. I was there. Um, so I think so. Yes. And let me just share one more thing around this and I share this story with Ryan Hurd. Um, this is a pretty cool story. So a friend of mine, someone recently who I'd heard from in a while ping me this is this is cool. Ping me to share the following story. This is connected to what you're saying. Where she was hanging out with a trooper and booj who's you know, amazing setup. Like having some evening thing and, and she turned to him and said, You know, I had a really sweet dream about you the other night and the rivets a turn to her, you know, very directly and said that was me.
And she kind of said, yeah, that's sweet. Nice. Yeah. Cool. And then, and then he turned more directly more firmly and said, No, that was me. And she said the same thing. Oh, yeah. Remember Jay, thanks. That's a really nice sweet thought. No third time he turns around almost Mr. raffle and looked her straight in the eye and said No, please understand. That was me. And so for some reason, then and then at that point, she got it. And for some reason that really landed with me, because I've had many, many dreams with him and also with other really amazing minds masters. And it's always been I've always felt when I've had these dreams, that yeah, for sure that was the Karmapa that was whatever. abomasum Baba that was somewhere in the chair wherever. I've always felt it really, really does seem like that was dumb. But you know, I still talked about this with Ryan. I embody two different personas, you know, and then at night, I'm a little bit more liminal, more nocturnal, more free flowing. You can even say more open minded. I come on during the day, I get a little bit more nerdy. In fact, after this call, I'm going to have a big long conversation with a bunch of scientists and academics to help study design some studies. So I dance between these two worlds and during the day I tend to be more skeptical. I tend to put on my scientific hat, and they tend to go really I'm not so sure. Um, but when I heard the story from her, it was like it was delivered with with such clarity that I realized, oh my gosh, all those dreams. I mean, they really are these mind agencies entering my MindScape for sure. 100%. Can you prove it? No, you can't prove it. You can't prove it scientifically. But not all proof has to be brought about through that tunnel. scientistic way. So that connects to this can tumor people share a lucid dream? Well, I had a dream. It was lucid. Trumper Rinpoche was in there, right? He's dead. So I couldn't ask him. But then for sure. We were sharing the same line in that incident. So I would say excuse me, yes, for sure. You can. Okay, so last one, and then we'll open it up. This is a really nice big deep one. How can we perceive the world outside of ourselves is solid Okay, I'm gonna take this apart because it's a little bit long and there's so much here. The first thing I'm going to do dry I guess Gary Gary without an A I guess is dry right? First thing I recommend. Again, shameless self promotion. This is entirely why I wrote my book dreams of light. The whole book is on your questions. So how can we perceive the world outside ourselves as solid? Well, there's a ton of region reasons. This is where integral approaches are necessary. But the principle reason we perceive the world as solid is because it's a psychological developmental issue born of fear. And basically what we do here the and this is such a big topic, we perceive the world outside is solid as a mistake. We take the qualities of the way we relate to ourselves, you know, we don't see things the way they are, we see things the way we are, because we see ourselves as relatively solid even though when we take a really close look, we crumble under analysis. We take these qualities and like King Midas we project them out into the world. Freeze the world in our image so we perceive the world outside ourselves a solid because we project those qualities outside onto the external world. The world is not solid. It's a dream. It's made a mind it's flowing. We're the ones that freeze it. We do it principally out of fear for developmental reasons. We do it principally as a form of kind of Arrested Development. So let's again, that alone itself is a book. Okay, and we perceive that people and people receive the same shape or forms, for instance, moving around in the neighborhood. Well, they're not receiving the same thing. Yes, within limits. And this is you have to read this book. I just finished that book discussion group with my science friends. If you haven't read this book yet. You have to read this book. It's extremely well written almost TMI, but it's a tour de force bestseller, an immense world by Ed Young. If you haven't read this book, you have to read it. It's an amazing book of decades, not decades, but years of amazing research, where he puts together in like, I don't know 1314 chapters, the amazing different ways that our animal brothers and sisters perceive reality. It is just beautiful. It's really really cool book, I highly recommend it. He didn't go far enough, in my humble opinion, the very end of the book. He brings in some nice ecological stuff, but he doesn't really take it into this philosophical spiritual thing, which is a shortcoming, but irrespective of that, it's a beautiful book. So we think that we see the world the same way in Yes, within certain parameters we do. But do we really? I mean, this is again, where developmental structures come into play. This is where cultural wars come into play. I mean, are we really seeing the same thing? Oh, no, we're not. We do for convenience, because we share collective karma and sense faculties and that sort of thing. So in a gross way, yes. That's why science provisionally works. We share a commonality we share a common dream. This is a little bit connected. You know, can people have lucid dreams together? Well, we're having one right now. We're sharing this lucid dream together. Right now. It's called samsara. So on one level, we're sharing a lucid dream right now, even though for most of us, it's now lucid. Are the objects in our Daydream created in every instant? Yes, they are. Physics will tell you this, right. This is what quantum mechanics is out of the zero point energy field moment, a moment quantum field theory. phenomena arise is a moment of patterned excitation in the dream and that quantum field moment, a moment that lightning speeds is created, arises abides and sees it all right. trillions of times happens yes. Are these solid dream images? Nothing is solid man. Nothing. Nothing is solid. Their dream images? Yes, in the sense that they're manifestations of mind, right? But they're not solipsistic. That's what this big question man. They're not solipsistic dream images, but they're men at manifestations of mine, and that sense their dreams. They're not constant, nothing's constant. They're like constant and anyway, there's the illusion of constancy brought about by flicker fusion brought about by all these phenomena, and again, my friend, all you do, you mentioned some of this and dreams of white. So you have looked at this cool I'm asking because I'm moving about in the world now. Yes. Trying to look at everything like a dream. Good for you. That's loose reform practice. As one of the exercises from your book dreams of light. So you are reading that book. Thank you. You're right that there is a deep something out there. Yes, there is something out there. Mind at large, right. That's the noumenon frozen light, luminosity emptiness. It's not it's not you that's out there. It's something out there. Something is out there. It's not a thing. It's not physical. The way you append a label to it depends on who you talk to you. I like Barnardos riffing is mind at large. There is indeed some thing out there cool and cool, but that we look at it the wrong way. Well, I wouldn't say the wrong way. We look at it in the way that we're predisposed. Culturally phenomenologically. Biologically, socially, that's an integral approach. That's not wrong. That's just our own Veldt. That's the main topic. One of the main terms in this man's world book is old Felts. This German charm for how we live in this perceptual bubble. You can't say that it's wrong. It's, well, it's wrong. It's fake news in relation to real news. Yes, that's connected to the other question. It's not wrong in the sense that this is our relative truth. This is the way this is our own belt. This is the way we enact our reality. Not wrong, it's just limited. How should we look at what appears solid to us all? Of us at a given place? Well, again, this is what the whole book is about right? Realize that appearance is not in harmony with reality. We should look at it with open eyes open mind, open heart, open aperture of awareness. Don't get stuck in sensory limitations and seduction, which is really hard to do. And it basically the best message I can share with you is just keep your mind heart spirit. Open, open, open, open, open. The more you open the aperture of all those things, the more you'll see truly clearly. The more I wouldn't say wrong but more these limited developmental phenomenological all these ways that could conspire to keep us in our perceptual belts. The more of those will start to be seen through this is what this is what creates growth and development increased perspective. This is evolution is increased and heightened perspective. So this is a guy this is a great deep question. I again, it's a little tricky when I get these really beautiful, big questions and I have to speed off bullet point answers. It's not easy. So that's the best I can do hope it works. Took a mere 15 minutes but anyway, yeah, let's get some live questions here and I'll shut these down. And fire away myRA. So nice to see you.
Good to see you too. I was wondering even to how to ask these questions because I've been meditating and contemplated in the this time would be the moon being served by Maha Mudra. And it's so today when I was reading I just was thinking about the part of the unborn. But all this sudden I realized that maybe and I just don't want you to agree with me, but it's the challenge to me. The moment of lucidity before we go into the story or to try to change it or to fly that flash of lucidity not only in the dream but in life and I thought about the moment in the Bardo, once you die that moment that you have a flash where if you recognize the moment you can go into transcend into Dharma tag, you don't have to go into the other door so there are the lights. It seems to me that there are similar
moments. I said not to agree with me. I was gonna say you I'm gonna say no. I can't we're not what is true. I have to say yeah, that's spot on. That's 100% What would you like me to disagree with?
Not disagree, but still all the rest of the story is Joe said the reification game with different tools or different meditation, different visions controlling, but we are just looking for that flush to make it stable to make it there, so not even make it stable. So we had that kind of perception,
I guess. Yes, exactly. I was just gonna that's one thing I was going to challenge you a little bit because what are you making stable? Yeah, I mean, yes. If I'm hearing you properly, yes. You know, we it. Rinpoche talked about it. Remember, Jay talked about it as first thought best thought which is a play on Ginsburg's notion. That even first thought is basically first glimpse first taste right. This is actually quite beautiful. You know yogic direct valid cognition, when it the first moment of perception. And this is what happens when you when you start to slow down, you start to see this. The very first incident of perception. It's actually a non dual like you said, this is a complete non dual spiritual Dharmakaya experience. That's it. It's perfectly pure. That's it. But then what happens is like a thunderclap that I love this analogy. It's like a thunderclap. So yeah, there's this amazing lightning flash. That's truth. It's brilliant. It's bright. And then almost immediately until you go through the purification processes. What happens the thunder clap, comes back together at blistering like lightning speeds. And then everything comes to bear. Basically what using our languaging these days through contractions, so a moment of openness, contact with reality. That's the flash you're in contact with what's true. But for ego, it's too much. It's too bright. The own belt is too open. And this is what Bernardo talks about beautifully. And this is great. This is the work of Karl Friston. He's mathematically showing this that'll speak that level of mathematics. But basically, if you were to see the world the way it really is, you would dissolve into an entropic soup you would literally just vaporize. I counted I encountered but when I was talking to Bernardo, did I say this with Marina I can't remember. I think that's what actually happens when you enter the Bardo of Dharma talk. You do turn into our topic soup, you do dissolve into the vast infinite display of reality. But then what happens is unless you're so open, that you can actually contain that brilliant light, or whatever, then what do you do? You contract out of fear? And the minute you can track the whole crab shell starts. That crab show starts not only at the end of life iteratively it happens right now. So we have that flash of contact right now. That's openness, but usually happens so fast, right? We don't even see how fast it happens. We contract we've reference everything back to self. And you know, that happens because the storylines start, that's when you know, that's when you know what's happening. You left you've had an out of body experience. You've left your body so to speak. You start commenting on it. That's how you know you've left reality. And so what you're saying is really beautiful. Not only applies at the Bardo, at the end of life, it applies to the Bardo is it happens right now slow down, open your eyes, open your heart, and you will realize that you're pulsating, it's in the Hindu tradition. This is the spunda tradition of dark the doctrine of vibration. That fundamentally we make contact with reality. Too much. It's too open whenever we contract. And then the minute you contract, you've left samsara among sorry, you left nirvana. Now you're in samsara is a construct, see? So yeah, any basically everything you're saying I completely agree with I mean, spot on. Always nice to hear. Thank you. Okay. Hey, Katie. Hey, Andrew, fire away.
In our most recent dream circle, Chelsea and I were talking about false awakenings and our experience with them. Cool. And one of the things that we noticed is house how vivid from a sensation perspective like especially touch but sensationally all around we noticed that false awakenings are super vivid for both of us and it made us feel curious about whether false awakenings are like why that is, are they on a different frequency than other dream experiences in the brain? Or is it just the fact that we believe that we're awake?
Yeah, that's it right there. That's it right there. Let me just say something about that. Before we go further. I can't speak about the whole brain thing here. But in terms of because I don't have one, but in terms of what you're saying that's just it. The reason it feels clear, and this is actually what characterizes the awakening. You don't know what's false yet. But you're clicking from something that seems a little bit less true, less dream, like into an experience that somehow that stance like helps you look back upon what you previously were involved in and say that was a dream. Well, in order for you to even say that you have to be in a perspective or a stance that's clearer and more stable than where you just were see. And so therefore, they're very flipping itself creates that sense of what you just talked about. That's completely a characteristic of what a false awakening is. But here's the here's the fundamental kicker. We all wake up at the end of the night like that, into this and we go, Oh, thank God, I'm awake, right? Oh, no. If you wake up, and you think this is solid, lasting, independent, I think it like Michael Williams question. That's a false awakening. So we think we're awake right now. But if you see this role is dualistic. It's a false awakening. And that's the way we take the phenomenology of false awakenings and the nocturnal arena, and extrapolate those insights into this arena, but I cut you off but that's that's just what comes to mind around that.
Yeah, no, that's, that's great. And I think a slight nuance that I'm curious about is even when I become lucid in the false awakening, it's still like, super vivid. So even once I realized, Oh, this is a beam that vividness stays.
Yeah. Yeah, I would have to say in my experience, that's that's absolutely the case as well. Right. So how many of these have you had a 123? Do you remember how many false awakenings you've had? In a row? Yeah.
The most I've ever had in a row was I was in my early 20s. I had seven in a row.
Wow, that's
scary. It was before I was like, really studying. dream work. I was having a lot of lucid dreams, but I wasn't studying it and it freaked me out. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I felt like I was being pulled and sucked back in. And Chelsea's actually having that experience more now. Or she's having repetitive false awakenings. I just I don't have them. That often now anymore, but I had one recently brought up the conversation
topic. Yeah, do people know what false awakenings are? You probably do my now. Post awakening is when you're having a dream. And you wake up from the dream. At least you think you have you know, you're dreaming you wake up from the dream and you go, Oh, wow, that was a great dream. Wow. Right. And then all sudden, something goes Holy crap. I'm still dreaming. You've you've clicked away from one dream and into another. They're also called recursive dreams, like those nested dreams. And so then what happens and I've had like three or four, then you click in well at least I'm awake. Now. Listen, I'm awake now and whatever, like, Oh, holy shit, I'm still dreaming click you go onto another one. Right. And so this is also very similar to what Jay once said beautifully, you know, the bad news is you've heard this the bad news is you're falling through space without a parachute. The good news is there is no ground. This is an intimation of that there is no ground. So you think you're awake right now? Same reason I mentioned with a question earlier. You think you're awake? You think this is real? This is just another dream. This is a false awakening. If you think you're awake right now, and you see me separate from you. You're still sleeping. And so that's what you do is you take these principles, you extrapolate them back here and you go, okay, what are the dream signs, then? You know, this is one way to separate from the earlier question about whether you're dreaming or in the Bardo. One way is, if you take this world to be solid, lasting and independent, exactly the dream signs on the world of lucid dreaming, they would allow you to realize that you are awake in relationship to that. What separates lucid dreaming from Dream Yoga? Is that then becomes the very dream set of dream signs that show you're still asleep in the world of Dream Yoga. You see the difference? So again, you think you're awake now. But if you see me different from you, you see this world solid, lasting and independent, you're still asleep. This is a false awakening. And it's the Buddha is the ultimate lucid dreamers that wake up to that. And how do they do that in exactly the same way. They retreat in a certain sense to a dimension of mind and reality that is more real than this. That's what characterizes the perspective to even upend the label that you were in a dream, see? So the only reason we don't know we're in a dream now is because we don't have stability and a level of mind. From which we can say with complete authenticity, this is a dream. We simply have an access and stabilize that clear light mind see. So once you understand that, then it's like whoa, this is where dream y'all got really separates itself from lucid dreaming. And this is where you can challenge ontologically the supremacy, the ontological supremacy of this, this so called materialistic world, this world is not materialistic. This world is not made out of matter. It's not physical. This world is made of mind. Hard stop. So anyway, that's where I want to run with that good stuff.
Yeah, yeah. And I would just inquire with your study group, how might you study false awakenings? Not not for you to answer right now, but just
like in a lab. Yeah. Well, first of all their hearts you know, the biggest problem with these studies is replicability. That's the issue. But study designs around these things are really tricky. I mean, you got to have someone who's really good at this crap. Who can get into a lab where it's really expensive to have all these scientists and all this crap hooked up to you and say, okay, tonight I'm gonna have recursive cetera dreams and practice false awakenings, right? Ah, that's not so easy, right? Not easy to cultivate that type of experience. It happened serendipitously. Yes, one of the biggest problems with Dream design is having people who can actually be subjects would they allow you to study this stuff? So replication that's why this stuff is so difficult. And I really, I mean, it's one reason I work with these people because I so respect what they're doing. Like, hey, if I can help you, man, I'm there. So studying this stuff, Katie is really slippery. What do you have? If you have somebody out there? There would be ways to do it if he had some buddy who could say okay, tonight. I'm gonna have a set of lucid dreams. I'm going to wake up falsely for you three or four times, you can signal that you could signal that. But anyway, I don't want to go too far up that tree.
But yeah, yeah, just something to ponder. Thank you.
Thanks. Do appreciate it. Okay. Hey, there's Amanda. My wonderful British friend. Hello. Hi.
So I had two or three weeks of quite a lot of what your friends typically would refer to as disturbances and turbulence and I did that that dream and that breathing Yeah, the shooting thing and I did it, but I did it in early in the morning and I did it very powerfully. And and what happened is I I really felt as if I blasted out through the top of my head, I mean, really, really far away. And I felt a bit frightened actually. But I could feel a lot of energy in my feet. So that sort of helped me to stay with it. But I stayed anyway in that state and what it helped me do was conversation I had to have later in the day, I probably was able to, you know, not get drawn into some of the probably underlying things which have been blown apart by by this breathing process. So I think, you know, going through the chakras the way we did I suppose it cleared stuff from the subconscious. I don't know I don't know what you make of that process.
When when you say process, you're mentioning several different things. So what was the reference when you say process which process?
Well, we did the breathing, shamanic breathing. We started with the lower chakras and went all the way up the system because I have a feeling I was accessing stuff that was stuck in the subconscious that you never like, was by doing this, you know, sure. But, but I said it was quite frightening going feeling so blessed that and I had to have rather a headache afterwards for quite a long time I have to say. I mean, obviously a lot of energy was was moving.
Yeah. So let me tell you, let me ask you a couple questions, because that type of fear is completely interesting and appropriate. Outside of the energy, what else made it feel disquieting? What What gave you the sense of fear or unsettledness? Where was that coming from?
Because I felt as if I was blasted too far out. Yeah. And how would I get back in and get on with the day?
I mean, yeah, that totally makes sense. So first of all, it's completely appropriate. It's a loss of reference point. It's basically a mixing of minds, quite literally almost to an extent, where again, the there's let me back out a little bit. The next time this happens, or even retrospectively, try this the next time this happens. Notice that when you're actually being launched off or when you're actually having the experience and in in this kind of first hit of the experience itself. Perhaps notice the sense of the effect of feeling tone that precedes the fear of complete openness, exhilaration, freedom, notice that and then notice because of habitual pattern, the tail still wags the dog. Notice how there's going to be something happening at lightning speeds back here. That's gonna say, Wait a second. Where do I fit into this? Well, you don't. Right, right. Yeah, you and that experience are mutually exclusive. That's where the fear comes from. Because at the moment of the experience is liberating it's free. It's a moment of the Enlightened space, but then because it's not stable, the wet the tail still there wagging. All of a sudden, there's this lightning fast something's gonna come out like a thought bubble at a subconscious level. It says, Wait a second. What about me? Well, there is no you but then what happens in the very instant of that thought the very instant that accompanies this. This is bloody brilliant stuff, man. To like the British interjection oh, by the way bloody. This is bloody brilliant. suggestion of how it happens is the moment you feel the fear completely simultaneous with that you're going to feel a contraction. It's the same thing. The fear brings about the sense of contraction that then brings about instantaneously the self sense that then looks back upon the experience and says, Man, this is shitty scary, right? So the fear only comes from referencing. So therefore when you hear that in the future, you'll go Oh, my God, he's right. When I'm actually in that space, this is like liberating. I'm like at that kini. I'm dancing in space. But then the evolutionary tail comes in and says, what about me? Well, there's no me there, but then the meaning you have that thought, contract, self sense. of self contact, online commentary starts, boom, you've left Nirvana, you're back in samsara. Now the good
thing is, I had heard the interview did with Pema children just a few days before and what I, what I heard from that was her saying, you know, that 108 times a day, she says out there out there, so I've been doing that so I did retain this eye space thing without being being frightened and I just realized what she said is so important is that you know, frequently during the day is just to look up and just out there out, you know, mix your mind with space. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's gonna be it was okay. But anyway, it's just interesting to have cleared so much, but what I just wanted to ask you was about this thing about the dream work, because I did have trouble stabilizing my sleep patterns, and now now they're stable. But the issue is that if I do wake up early and do some, and go back into a lucid dream, it does mean in the day, I don't feel quite as refreshed as I've felt when I've been having proper sleep. So there's a bit of a dilemma there. And the other thing is, with the Tera Vaada approach, I was with adjuncts to me it was an adjunct job, you know, you don't want one of that lot. I mean, we did do very intense work with fear desire with the widow with the with the V pasta. And I know that you're hearing the webinars again, about Dream Yoga, that, you know, number four is, you know, when you look at the fear and stuff, so I've done a lot of it in the day, and therefore, I mean, is it necessary for me to think now, I should really be doing more of this stuff in the night?
No, no, no, it's just an option, right? Yeah. Again, don't should on yourself, don't shoot yourself and don't shoot on others. Right, stop shooting. So yes, if you have a connection to the fear thing and you want to work with fear, then that becomes a frequency of practice that you can engage with. But if you're especially you mentioned Bruce stuff, you know, if you work with Bruce is really, really wonderful stuff on fear and anxiety. I mean, jeez, on one level, you can say that's enough. The dream that level of dream work just in a certain sense augments that maybe you could say cautiously amps that up. But yeah, right, just relax around that and don't shut on yourself anymore.
Because you know, Namkhai Norbu, you know, says that if we practice in the dream state or asleep state, so I have had some dreams where I've seen it. I've seen myself meditating, but I saw it more like a witnessing thing rather than I was actually meditating. Do you see what I mean? I see my finger. I do. But so. So I mean, but I feel I've got an opportunity at the moment since my sleeping is better to try and explore this more. And I just wondered if you could help me to do that.
I mean, well, in addition to what I just said, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, Amanda? Well, well,
I probably should discipline myself to try and try and explore this this dream world more while I have you know,
I think it's worth it. But again, listen, we're gonna post it we actually might be posted. We posted already. Alyssa, unlike lab, the Ryan Hurd thing not yet, right? Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna post that ASAP like a really rich conversation and Ryan Scott is really great. By the way he's gonna be subbing yen when I'm teaching in your turf in Europe. He's going to be helping us out for my club. You'll see why he's amazing. Right, in that I'm gonna refer you to what we talked about there. But we talk about the difference between not do tonight not to lose on the role of effort that you want to work with this stuff. But the nocturnal business, a little bit like meditation business altogether, doesn't quite abide unequivocally by the same principles of effort and practice during the day. It's a little bit different territory. And by this what I mean, and I just got with this on myself, and Ryan talked about it, you know, it's like, oh, man, you gotta have these lucid dreams. I got I'm gonna have more dreams. I gotta count it out. And then you get all frustrated and you just collapse and you give up and then you start having them. It's like, it's like putting your finger on a beat a Mercury. These practices are mercurial. They don't abide by the traditional principles, which is why so many people get frustrated. A lot of it is different. The physics is different. Everything is different. And so here is the idea of not too tight, not too loose that we have to find your sweet spot. Yes. There has to be some effort or it's not a yoga, it's not a practice. But if it's too tight, it's the horse, your mind will buck. In a certain sense. It's going to flip you off saying I'm not gonna lose the train because you're way too tight, right? And so then you have to chill out, back off, relax. Often I do that it's like hack. That's when the drain started happening. Right? So that's where you have to balance this is where it makes it more advanced practice. You have to be your meditation guide here. You have to balance between these two extremes and find your own sweet spot. That's why this is a more advanced practice. It's nobody's there to go in there with you. Nobody can hold your hand. But understanding these parameters of not too tight, not too loose, you will find your sweet spot. I often find it as Ryan shares in his story. He's doing his paper. He's got to write this thing I've got I've got organic gotta have these things. He doesn't have them. He's trying too hard. He relaxes, guess what happens? They start happening. So somewhere in there we find our sweet spot right? And that's what makes this stuff fun, frustrating. Mercurial the whole thing. It's why this stuff is a little bit tricky.
Right? So the Spanish because we know that it's quite close to me where your thing in Spain is. But that's for the traders, isn't it? It's so that they can do that
or you can you can come to that. Yeah, that's open it's on their website. Yeah, that's open to the public.
I mean, say that we'll be covering a lot of this, won't it? Yeah. Okay, okay. I think I'll do that.
Okay. See you there. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks. Hey, have one or two more and then
Hi. Hi, thanks. It's actually Hamish but nevermind. Sorry, Hamish. I'm sorry, Scottish for James. So I put this in the chat earlier, but I have very since my teens I mean, I'm 70. Now I've had very vivid dreams. But since studying this, the dreams are just as vivid if not getting more vivid and more expansive. Cool. The thing is, I get dreams signs, things that are humanly impossible in the waking world. But I don't realize that there are dreams signs until I wake up and review the dream. Oh, that was a dream sight. Oh. And so so the question is, is how can I become aware of the fact that their dream sides in order to become lucid? Because I've only become lucid very briefly, a few weeks ago, flying and I was so awed by it, that of course I woke up.
Yeah, first of all, it takes a little bit of time. And secondly, if you have a particular set of dream signs, you know, in a certain sense, I wouldn't say they're infinite. There are a lot of dream signs. But what I've discovered in my experience, and with others, and maybe this is what you will discover with yours, as well. This is where dream journaling comes in. Start writing these puppies down. I write them all down, right? Yeah. Okay, write them down, circle them, highlight them, memorize them. Because I'm telling you at a certain point, you're gonna kind of bottom out in other words, you're gonna start flipping through the Rolodex, right. You start to notice Oh, there's that dream sign. Oh, there's that one and then all of a sudden this is where Recurrent Dreams come in or recurrent dream signs with increased familiarity that comes into play that definitely Okay. Secondly, is work with this more and more during the day. Just you know, Do state checks, like all the time, I do these with so much regularity. Exactly. I'm so conditioned to this. Like if I were sitting here, and one of my books fell off the shelf I'm telling you right now, I would just jump up because I do these things all the time. And so I would just say become more and by the way, these things also doubled as death signs. The more you do this, the more familiar you get with them. The more that habit pattern will translate into the nocturnal experience and then the royalties will start to click in. I think if you play with both of those against the word play, not work. If your work is too tight, play with them and eventually you'll start to notice patterns. You write down those patterns, you'd have this little kind of discography, mastery of your own dream signs, and then they'll start to really work for you dream Recurrent Dreams are super helpful here. That's where you can use recurring dreaming as a way to work with lucidity through iteration of dream signs. So I think if you do those two things and get back to me in a month, you'll you'll notice the difference.
Wonderful. That brings me to my next very brief question, recurring dreams, my route teacher, Namgyal Rinpoche, who was in Canada, he passed away a number of years ago. Since then I have had recurring dreams of being with him. Cool. So as as the previous person asked, was that my imagination or was he actually there like the Rinpoche turning around? So that was
me. That's impossible to answer. Okay. I would say probably, yes. Here's what here's one way to suss that out. And this is just me. What's the effective feeling tone when you wake up? My experience is when I feel is you know, I've had a number of these I've been so blessed or lucky. When I have these experiences. I wake up in the morning and I'm just glowing. I mean, it I just realized somehow my sleep has been blessed. Whatever entered my mind. I mean, I maybe should give myself a little bit more credit, you know, but maybe my unconscious mind is not as pure right? Let's just be very candid, right? So I wake up from that morning, I'm glowing. I just, I just want to hug the universe. That agency was in my mind space. I feel the same way. Yeah. And so trust that trust that and trust that I've had
a feeling of it's more of a feeling of deep gratitude, and I feel that it's been a real visitation.
It's a it's a blessing. It's a blessing visitation trust them. I've also had other I've also had other dreams you know, almost like parenthetical if my cameo appearances, right, I'm having a dream. There's little cameo appearance of Trump or obj or something. I wake up from that then it's like, I think that was just me. I think that was just my neurological riff. So that's just the way I centrifuge out these two can I say with total authority No, that's the way I relate to it and I think you're moving on this i You just know there's something you know, first thought again, first thought wake up in the morning, when the light is still striking before the thunderclap with a commentary comes in. That's where you find the truth. But usually what happens is we start to look back with the spin doctor start to go to work. Usually the doubt comes in. Don't listen to that crap, hit the mute button. Pay attention to that first somatic effective feeling tone when you first wake up. Trust that because okay, buddy.
Thank you so much.
Very lucky. Okay, let me just spend through some of these quickly. I don't mean to be rushing, but I've been listening to Rupert Spiro, I love him. i He's been on the docket for months. He's agreed to do a podcast with me. I'm the one that just needs to get back to him. I adore this guy's work. The listening group was fire curious what you know, think of him I read tons of his stuff. I mean, the guy is a colossal online YouTube presence. I like him a lot. This meditation method is different from charlatan Yes, he's not a shamatha kind of guy. He's an Advaita Vedanta guy. And so his his whole approach is again, not a criticism, but this is one of the things I do want to talk to him about. Slightly absolutist ik but I love him. I think his work is great. His book, the nature of consciousness essays on the unity of mind and matter. This frickin book is brilliant. I'm a big fan of Rupert. He and burnout are really good friends and I can see why they're awesome together. Big fan of Rupert's. Okay, okay, thank you. Thank you very clear one. And you since joining our club, I've had many dreams so I dream about dreaming. Dreams where you dream about dreaming. Cool, good for you. Just had three or four this week. Awesome. I'm often in a class or discussion group focused on dreams. I guess that's no dream, right? They're mostly not lucid. That's okay. But they do seem very clear and the information presented seems very real. is real. Is this rational and logical and sometimes new. Do you think there could be a classroom occurring in the inner planes? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't freeze the classroom. Don't think that there is some pre existing classroom you like room 404 Right, right. Room 404 is waiting for me. In hallway three in the education building. I'm gonna go there tonight. Now, I'm playing with you but you get the idea. Is there a classroom going on for sure. Classrooms take place anywhere just don't reify it? Just don't reify it, but this is beautiful. Is there some classroom occurring on the inner planes? Absolutely. This is kind of part of the night you know, the night school curriculum for sure. Okay, follow up for question. From Tanya. If I focus my mental awareness to an area inside my head, okay. Approximately area of my left brain hemisphere, okay. With fMRI pick up increased blood flow in the brain tissue accordingly? Probably. Yes. Yes. I can't say with authority. But yes, probably. That's what fMRI is do. If yes. Would that not finally prove primacy of the mind? Well, it won't prove it but it will suggest it. Proving you know, here's the thing about proof in the scientific community, you don't really prove anything. If you don't have a falsifiability thing. It's more about any any authentic scientists will will be extraordinarily hesitant to ever use the word proof. It's highly suggestive, it's indicative is pointing towards it. So the proof thing is highly suggestive. I wouldn't say prove that's a little bit too close door to me. And any scientists would say Yikes, that's that that's that that's a proof is a four letter word. And scientists can't tell can't very well but it's actually five letters, but you get the idea right. I love my science brothers and sisters are the greatest. But just like everybody else, you know, strengths and weaknesses. Okay, Stargate program. Oh, yeah. Steve mcmoneagle was great. And remote viewing has been tested successfully. Yeah, great. But is remote viewing the same as shared lucid dreaming, Tim? Yeah, is it? I don't think so. Okay, getting down here. Perhaps legitimate OB e's are difficult to test scientifically. Yes, they are. Like sleep yoga. Yes. Besides just are working with sleep yoga. Because I know because I'm working with him. Charlie Morley used to be a non believer now he believes they are really yes because he married a woman who works with OB ease. His wife is really this is her big thing right? Or his ex wife I should say. Robert Wagner calls in reality plus one. Oh, that's nice. languaging like that. I've just was in contact with him. By the way. ALAN WALLACE says the Dalai Lama gave an advanced teaching on this. Yes, it's in the book. Sleeping, dreaming dying. I know that book and I know that teaching. But Allah lets the reader decide for themselves. Yes, if they are real or not. I think Claire Johnson believes their real depends on what you mean by real. So this is why excuse me, this is where you have to listen to the podcast with Sean Espeon Hargens on his ontology matrix. Real what kind of real? Yes, it's real. It depends on what kind of real and the three different stations of the ontology matrix is real. So absolutely. It just depends on the granularity of what you append the label real to it's real. Does it mean it's physical? Mystic, real? Maybe not? Is a phenomenological and epistemologically real 100% So it depends on what kind of real you're talking about. I'm not I'm not being clever here. This type of granularity is actually very important. When you start talking about this stuff. Listen to that talk and read that paper while cosmos in the shot Espeon Hargens interview. His isn't ontology matrix is brilliant. Yeah, it's Robert Wagner. Yes. I know. He has a book devoted to share dreaming. Yeah, you know, this is I'm agnostic on this. I think it's completely possible. I have not had this experience, but that doesn't mean anything. Okay. Yeah, it's an immense world. Yes. Thank you, Tanya, how animals sensors reveal the hidden realms around us. It gets a little bogged down. There's like TMI, there's so much information. But the it's a beautiful book, and it definitely has related the way I change the way I relate to my dog birds. It's just a wonderful way to talk about just yet everything we talked about today's beautiful, beautiful book. Okay. What is good book about the five Buddha families the jhana Buddha's Oh geez. journey without goal to permit J. The five wisdom energies by Rene Rockwell. She talks about it in that respect, the five Buddha's what is emptiness understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead because the five meditation Buddhists are the ones that appear in the first five days of the Bardo. I'm confused about how Skandhas relate to meditation Buddhists are just confused in general. Oh, sure. I put your I love you. You're so great. Yes, I'm with you. I'm just as confused as our is your I'm confused about how Skandhas relates meditation but as a way this is such a big question Yeah, this is a big one. Basically, this condors when they're purify, right, become the fiber and so what you understand here I'm trying to think of other books. Another book by Trungpa McKay's I think it's literally just called mandala or no I'm sorry orderly chaos. My mistake, orderly chaos. Anything that deals with Mandela principle deals with this contract versions of the scandalous Don't you know you won't find this in classic Theravadan renderings. They don't talk about this at all. But Trump che was the really the man one of the main folks that riffs on this a lot so orderly chaos. Journey of the goal journey without goal those two books, there's some really great stuff and then his student arena, Rockwell, a good friend of mine, her book I think it's called the Five wisdom energies. She talks about this. Okay, I missed the last few meditation evenings when did Andrew lead the shamanic meditation I have not. I only do this one in person. This cannot be given online. Next time I'll be doing it will be a NEMA in September with Bob Thurman. Don't teach that online. It's too intense. It's too powerful. Rupert Spiro will be a garrison. Yes, he was there last year as well. He's great. I really liked Rupert. I really I'm gonna get him on the site. I mean, I've been in contact with Ruth. I just need to set it up. But I really like Rupert. He's great. He we brought him on as I'm in this little science academic study group. We brought Rupert in there and had a really great conversation with all the scientists it's super fun. Yeah, Jade Shaw Exactly. of Charlie's wife Jade. I've never met her. I've been in contact with her. She seems like a beautiful person. So I don't want to do anything but support her and Charlie. Charlie's a good friend. I haven't met Jade but if somebody is connected to Charlie gotta be cool. J seems really cool. Yeah, Sai Baba in India frequent totally frequently appeared. To his followers and dreams. Yes, he did all the time. He used to sit on their beds and advise them what to do on their lives. Absolutely true. 100% Sai Baba was a real sitter. He did this kind of stuff all the time. I met him once in India. Really cool guy. Okay. Yes. Did. Yes, we're done. Yeah. We made it 330.
Okay, everybody. So remember, we dedicate the merit so we don't get too narcissistic and self absorbed and what we're doing here. What we're doing here is not a feel good strategy. We're not here. Yes. We're here to self improve ourselves out of existence. Basically, this is not a self improvement problem. This is a self transcendence plan. So yes, we do this to improve Yes, yes, yes. But we basically want to prove ourselves out of existence. What we're doing here is for the benefit of others. Please remember that. And again, if you want to accelerate your spiritual path, the only way you'll accelerate it is if you do it for other people. No kidding. If you do it just for yourself and ain't gonna work. That's why when you do tantric practices before you do any tantric practice, if you don't have bodhichitta if you don't have the heart, mind of compassionate awakening, tantra doesn't work, man. And so always remember that what we're doing here we're doing it for the world for this planet for all these animals written about in this beautiful book for the planet itself. For the people in Ukraine. Always, always remember that this is not about you, because there isn't one. So dedication of merit, bring it all together, and then shine it out all the animals and if you want to unmute yourself and turn your camera on, we can do this little group hug fest which is kind of fun. Otherwise, I'll see you around the block. You know how I roll. All the best to you and great, great fun to hang out with everybody.