Welcome, everybody. This is our webinar series, what number end? What number of webinars is this? 45 Wow, 45 webinars. Lots of stuff we've covered the last couple years. So if you happen to be new to this, what we do is, on this particular kind of track, this is a chance for us to explore different aspects of this whole business. And we're on this kind of green yoga stages thing. But before we do that, we're doing this totally funny II thing, right? Where everybody for just a second turns on their cameras if you want. We always sweet, loving, hopefully, it's a loving Hello. Yeah, so nice. starting to do some in person stuff this year. So psyched. I'm not going to go through all my little upcoming stuff. And he's going to post some links in the chat for some events I have. If you have any questions about them, we can discuss them. And so what we do here is I'll present what we're distract track will kind of put it in context, I'll probably go for 40 minutes or so. Then another, I think, really most fun for me about these things is the opportunity to engage in q&a. And so this can be specifically related to this topic to the track, or really anything, virtually anything related to these natural meditations or meditation or whatever. So you can start pinging into questions, if you want them in the chat column, you can send them we can put them into Google Doc, or you can raise your hand, raising your hand is always the best. Because that way, I can actually have some dialogue and some exchange with you all. So what we started in the last, the webinar, which is the first one in the series, we're exploring now the stages of Dream Yoga. So I'm not going to review everything that we covered back then. But I do want to say a couple more things because kind of preparatory they're not preparatory, they're just augmenting material. Because when we transition from stage one, Dream Yoga, which really stage one is really just lucid dreaming. And again, not in a pejorative sense, but it's more like enjoying yourself having a good time. But the minute we go from stage one to stage two, we make a pretty colossal change, because stage two in here on out. Now we're really doing what Dream Yoga is about. And the next eight sessions, I'm going to try to relegate one webinar to each one of these steps, because I think these steps are really quite important is we're really now starting to explore mind. And as I mentioned yesterday, if you happen to be at our meditation session, I've been really thinking, reading, contemplating a lot on this notion of everything we do really take a look. And if you think it's otherwise, I would love to engage in the debate with you. Because I've come after decades and decades of this so called inner work, inner work means what working with your mind. As far as I can tell, everything we do is meet not only mediated by mine, the entirety of our existence is basically working with mind. Or, as I often say, if we don't work with it, it works with us, it works us over. So really take a look. This is a type of analytic meditation and take a look and see if it's not true. That absolutely everything you do, whether you know it or not, is about working with your mind. And so that's what makes these
dream yoga practices really potent because now we're facing the mind point blank. And we're given as we'll see this really Rare, unique opportunity. Where the unconscious mind, not only are we working with mind and the conscious level, but what makes these natural adaptations so powerful, is that rare opportunity where the conscious mind can face the unconscious mind directly. In short of hypnosis, and even hypnosis doesn't really quite do it the same way. I am actually trained in clinical hypnosis, I have used it in my practice. And so while there are obviously some similarities, there are many differences. One of the major ones is only about 10% of the population is actually highly suggestible or hypnotizable. So even the hypnosis thing, only go so far with people but it is extremely effective and the research around it and some of the data Hypnosis, I write about it in my book dreams of light, super interesting stuff. But I really want to stamp a couple of these comments because as we go through these next eight stages, everything we're doing here now is we're working very directly with the mind and in particular with the unconscious mind. And so this is no small thing. Bob Thurman in this last, I think tantric puroland teaching program I did with him, he said something that's part of his genius, he'll just be riffing along at 100 miles an hour. And he'll ping off a statement that he doesn't really return to you that I when he says these sorts of things, I jot them down and put stars and underline them in my notebook. And it's like, wow, that is an amazing statement. And so in the tantric, your lamp program, the last one I did with him, he was on this really, I think, pretty brilliant riff. And in the middle of it at Mach one is once he gets going, he doesn't move. He said this, he said, This is how this program these teachings connect to what's called Bardo yoga, right? The deepest aspects of the natural meditation, where he said, You know, it's not safe to die. If you still have an unconscious mind, that's an astounding statement, it just smacked me, it's not safe to die. If you still have an unconscious mind, amazing thing to say, and I reflected on that hit me like a ton of bricks. I've reflected on that a lot. Because just like in the dream, and again, this is how this totally connects to Dream Yoga. You know, when we're working with this material, we are directly preparing for death. So again, I want again situate recontextualized just how much is actually happening here. That's what makes the Bardot's the literally the dream at the end of time. That's how the Tibetans label death is literally literally called the dream at the end of time. What makes the Bartos perilous when they talk about the perilous straits, the Bardot's? Well, it's only perilous if your unconscious mind has not brought been brought into the light of consciousness. And so what these practices do, they bring these unconscious processes into the light of conscious awareness. That is that is colossal. That's really in so many ways were the entire one way to look at what the entire psychological spiritual path is all about. Until you really get to the point where there really is no unconscious mind literally, like in the mind of the Buddha's. This is why a Buddha doesn't sleep. Why a Buddha doesn't die. Because in the mind of a truly lucid one, the ultimate lucid dreamers there is no unconscious mind. And so, so much of what we're doing here is we're trying to bring these, you know, Freud, right, good old Sigmund Freud. He didn't really invent the unconscious mind. But what he did do is he really discovered it for the Western world. That was his colossal contribution, among many others, but it was really this this really brilliant exposition of the of the power of the unconscious mind. Hence, his his his phenomenal magisterial book, the interpretation of dreams where he had this iceberg model of consciousness that the you know, the entire
superficial, so called conscious life is just the tip tip of an iceberg. And below the surface, ie unconscious is the bulk of the Burgh so this colossal strata of unconscious and you've heard me say this before from a bunch of different researchers. And this again, is another these kind of Titanic Oh, interesting, to connect icebergs to the Titanic. This is a titanic proclamation 95 to 99%, you should write this down, put exclamation points on it, tack it on your forehead, tack it on your refrigerator 95 to 99% of what we do, is dictated by these unconscious processes, all these habit loops, all this karma, whatever languaging you want to use, that really runs the show backstage runs on stage. Darkness really rules the day, the darkness of the night really rules the day. And so this is colossally important to say as we progress in these next eight stages, everything is held within this kind of narrative of working with mind. That's what the whole business is about. Whether you know it or not, you are whether you know it or not, you are always working with your mind because reality is the nature of mind. And so by understanding that and then augmenting it with this really unique opportunity To work with conscious and unconscious processes directly. And that's what makes these practices a bit advanced and a bit difficult. It's not easy to work with these unconscious processes. That's one reason we don't have lucid dreams with regularity. And I'll say a little bit more about that as I talk about stage two. And so the other thing that's deeply connected to this, this is especially a Buddhist kind of proclamation is that when you start working with Dream Yoga, this is a colossal distinguishing feature between Dream Yoga, and lucid dreaming. Everything and Dream Yoga, starting today with Stage two is about working not only with mine unconscious mind, but all of this circumambulate, the core teaching of the Buddhist tradition, which is emptiness, we're working with these incredibly profound teachings on emptiness, which really, if there is a heart essence to Buddhism, this is it. Much Ado About Nothing, as Shakespeare put it, this is what the Buddha discovered. And then you know, what that means is, is a colossal part of the Buddhist path altogether. And it is absolutely central to the Dream Yoga path. I mean, the Dalai Lama in this really wonderful book, sleeping, dreaming, dying. He says anybody, anybody can practice Dream Yoga. But the deeper divers, Buddhists, whatnot, they practice it with a very exclusive intent to explore emptiness to explore mind as it expresses itself in that domain. And so these next eight stages, really, if you look at the refinement, the progression are basically progressive meditations on emptiness, each one more refined, each one more subtle, each one becoming increasingly formless. Until we get to the full formless practices, stage nine, where then Dream Yoga transitions into sleep yoga. So I really wanted to point this out, because it will help us it's kind of an orienting generalization that will help you understand a little bit of the logic behind these progressions and where we're going all the while remembering that this is what we're doing. And again, Minjae Rinpoche writes about this beautifully, where he says, you know, the daytime world is a tougher classroom, to learn the curriculum of emptiness is actually easier on one level, to really learn about emptiness using the medium of the dream. And so that's what we're going to be doing. And so with that said, let's start again, with stage two, which is really on one level, full blown stage one, Dream Yoga. And I have to share last night this is this is this is the kind of cool stuff about this. I actually had two lucid dreams last night.
Exactly on stage two, and I didn't even incubate it. So what we're going to be doing, just to give you a little preview, for the next eight weeks, or eight sessions, I should say, as I go through these next eight steps, we're gonna have a little homework assignment, where we're going to work to incubate stage two between now and the next time we meet, so that we can see like, Okay, can we have some success? And so last night, I didn't do an official incubation, but I was thinking a little bit about, hey, this is what I'm going to be riffing on today. And sure enough, I had two really, really great long dreams all about stage two. So I woke up with just this huge beaming smiles like yeah, this is awesome. This is so great. So I'm particularly charged because I spent quite a bit of time last night and my dream actually working with the stuffing. Yeah, so here we go with this one. So stage two is basically doing things practically where you do things like putting your hands through a dream wall putting your I mean, last night I did it so many different ways. Literally like walking down a hallway, a dream hallway. It's just hysterical. I put like a handout on both sides. And because I've been doing this for for quite a while I can actually now go through the dream wall somewhat quickly and I'll say more about this in a second. So I'm like I'm running down like a little kid down this dream wall this dream hallway with both my hands through the dream wall. And so like this this kind of gooey whatever the dream wall stuff is my in my dream state is made up all this this really fun stuff is taking place and then I'll stop or if I buy a table up I'll put my finger through a dream whatever's in front of me and I'll start just basically cutting through the appearances another version two so many versions I did this last night as well is I'll drop through whatever dream ground I'm in. So like I'm on some dream house some dream literally Earth And I got okay, this is this is really like my favorite stage. I'll just kind of like drop through, you know, like, I'm gonna plunge through this dream Earth. And then I'm gonna like a little more I'm gonna run through underground, the dream Earth. And so it's like, okay, well, this is like some cool video games like, why are you doing this? Well, it's actually quite profound. It's much more than a video game, you're working with what's called fracture in, in Tibetan Buddhism, so this is like, immediately you start to see, well, this is we've just gone from video games to the highest schools of Nigma, Tibetan Buddhism Dogen tradition, literally the teachings on the great perfection. And so there are two colossal subsets of this tradition one is literally the most important one is traction, T, R, E, K, CH o en la, which really literally translates as cutting through literally cutting through to primordial purity, cut that texture. And so this is a colossal part of the dosha path is literally seeing through cutting through appearances. And my most recent book, dreams of light was largely about this, right? Those of you who read it, or participated in the book study group. And so here's where the stuff again, there's so much to say here. This practice is both diagnostic and prescriptive. And you've heard me use this kind of maxima number of times and by this one I mean is that very often when people do this practice at first,
they can't do it. And I remember very clearly, I couldn't do it, I he was it was the instruction from the classic texts, I'd become lucid, I come up to the dream all I know, I'm dreaming. I come up to it, I literally tried to put my hand and it this way, or this way, I give you some tips and tricks. I just can't do it. Well, why is that? Well, this is the revelatory path, the diagnostic path, or aspect I should say. Where remember, the moniker for Dream Yoga is what the measure of the path Dream Yoga is the measure of the path. And so I know I'm dreaming, I'll come up to the dream wall. And I can't walk through it. I can't put my hand through it. And it's why is that? Well, because your habits are being revealed to you. You're actually starting to see how deeply entrenched you may be studying emptiness you may be thinking you have a so called grasp on it. And your dreams may tell you otherwise. Dreams are truth tellers. Oh, I've got this emptiness thing down. Well, let's see. Let's see, let's see how that really works in your dream. And so for me, I have to tell you, this has been a really a wonderful, you know, the measure of the path is not always a bad thing, the measure of the past sometimes can be rewarding, you can kind of track your progress. And so over decades of doing this, and I have to say of all the stages, I probably do this one the most. It's kind of become my default stage of all nine stages. So even if I don't, I think like last night, even if I don't incubate it, this is kind of where I go. This is like my main practice. And so what I have noticed definitely, absolutely 100% over the last decades, is initially I couldn't do it. Even though I knew it was a dream, I couldn't go through it eventually, you know, I'll work with it. I'll work with it, you know, maybe a couple of years or a couple months into it. All of a sudden, you know, my handle just like plunged through the wall or whatever. And so what I've absolutely noticed over decades is I can do it much more quickly now. And like last night, it's instantaneous. I realized, Oh, it's a lucid dream. What are we going to do today? Oh, let's do stage two. And that's what makes it so fun out celebratory I go in there and I'm just like cutting through appearances left and right. And it's just a hoot. It's just really, really fun. So until I did it, and especially this is the following is actually going to be quite important is I did I did get a little bit frustrated. Because it's like, Man, I just can't do this practice. And then I realized how important this was as a revelation that the measure of the path dreams as truth tellers was really showing me like, you think he got this emptiness thing down? Well, you know, maybe not. And so instead of getting bummed out it's pointing out a blind spot for me and this is another reason why Dream Yoga is considered a bit advanced because it will show you where you're stuck and some people just don't want to see it. They just like I don't want to know where I'm stuck. So that's the diagnostic part it will show you because your your executive functions of the brain, mostly proof motor cortex areas are offline. And so you can't be asked yourself in the dream, these truths are reveal. And so you have to have a slightly more advanced, so to speak adult attitude to deal with these types of failures. But here's the kicker thing. D armed with this view, the failures are actually successes. They're not there's no failures and Dream Yoga, as long as you have the right view, because your failures are pointing out to you these either internal conflict of interests, these blind spots, all these places where you're stuck. And so with that attitude, instead of like, Oh, crap, no, it's like, oh, wow, I, you know, I can't do this. And when I talk later about, I think it's my stage seven, I think can't remember that when I had, I have problems with some of these other stages coming up, I like I really wrestle with them. And so that's also revelatory. To me. It's like, whoa, you know, I really, I need to continue to apply my efforts here and here and here. And so a sense of humor. Interesting. The word comes from a root connected to the humors of the body means liquidity, fluidity, somewhat harmonious with what we're doing here, sense of humor is really important.
And there are some tricks you can do here. So one of them and I shared this before, but it's definitely a trick that's worth playing with. One of these I learned from kealan Some of you may know her she's won a seat on the Burgess main teaching assistants. And she's a absolute virtual, so lucid dreamer. So she told me one and then I'll show you another one that I kind of learned. One is that if you're if you're trying to walk through the wall, two things you can do before you try to walk through the wall. And this is totally worth doing. Because first of all, it's really interesting. And it's also hilarious, is often when I started trying to walk through a wall, I would literally just like, bump up against it with my big nose, right? Like it's terrible. And then kill it share this tip with me. She said, Well, put your hand down in front of you like this, like a little spear. Because her her thoughts on it, she probably got this from Stephen, is that there's a little evolutionary instinct there that you don't want to hurt yourself, right? So she found that if you actually go through the wall with your hand first, you'll have greater success and cutting through because you're not going to just be slamming your dream head against this dream wall. Of course, none of which is really there. But that's, that's a preview of coming attractions. The other one that I've also done, and this one also super works totally works is maybe some of you have done it, I'd love to hear your experiences is come up, you can kind of approach the wall, then turn around and walk through the wall backwards. The reason that's awesome is you don't know when you're going to hit the wall. And so what's happened to me here is is I'll do that I come to the wall, a turnaround back into the wall. And the next thing I know is I see this kind of gooey mind stuff. It's like jello for me. It's hysterical. I see myself kind of going through this jello. And it's like, oh my gosh, I must be walking through the wall. Because here's the wall and I'm going through it in this kind of jello. What's its movie Ghostbusters, right where they splay spray, all that gooey kind of stuff. So these are this again, we're just gets really goofy and fun. And just like, wow, this is so bloody interesting. So I recommend you do that as a way to play with it. And then also as a way to assess, like where you really are with this stuff. Because I promise you this is you progress in your understanding progressive stages of meditation on emptiness, which is really progressive stages of meditation on reality, that really reality is of the nature of mind, you will find yourself doing this with greater frequency rapidity and ease until it just becomes like, you know, no brainer. So the other part, the other thing that's super interesting here along this is how this stage of practice and others in this also is really important can reveal to you these kinds of like I alluded to earlier, these kinds of internal conflict of interests going on, because I've noticed this as well, that, you know, we have I've mentioned this so many times because it's so important, and I see so many confusions these days, with individuals who don't really understand the importance of what I'm about to say and that's why I say this over and over and over is the we don't exist as a particular locus of identity. We actually exist appear across a broad spectrum of consciousness, a spectrum of identity From really pretty evolved to really pretty deep evolve, as I say, from dirt to divinity, from psychotic to Mystic from beasts, the Buddha, there as part of you wants to wake up doing spiritual practice doing the inner work, that's the higher ultraviolet, and whatever your identity, but then there's this Caboose, this evolutionary aspect, it's still highly operative, that's again part of your unconscious
domain frequency. And that has a colossal impact. And so you may have all the intentions in the world to do these types of things. And your unconscious mind may not go along. And this is also this also applies by the way to daily life. Bruce Lipton writes really beautifully about this, you may have every intention, you know, like, as he puts it, you know, how are those New Year's resolutions working out for you? Right, you have, oh, this is the year I'm going to quit smoking. This is the year I'm going to lose so many pounds this year, I'm going to do whatever, whoa, I've got that really strong intent. Well, you know, good luck with bringing along the caboose. Because there's all this history, all these narratives, all this unconscious stuff that says, hey, wait a second, you know, you better talk to us about this. You we better have a little committee meeting and see whether we agree with you or not. And so therefore, both in dream and in life, you may have the most noble aspirations to do these things. But you have this colossal, unconscious mind that says I don't think so. And so understanding that in itself, I have found this super helpful not only in dreams, but in life, to cut yourself a little slack to realize that even with the best intentions, because you're having this little bit of an inner you know, this is this is real jihad. So when I those of you who listen to my conversation with USFL, whore, this Islamic scholar we talked about the greater and lesser jihad, lesser jihad, parenthetical sidebar here, the lesser holy war is what we see this ridiculous thing that we read on the papers, real jihad, real inner jihad is is dharma combat, wrestling working with this stuff, this is energy hot, this is what we're working with your and so again, by engaging in this wrestling match, working with these unconscious processes, that often don't work with us, they work against us, we can start to befriend them make a relationship to these processes, and bring them onto the path because until we do that, we're just going to be really coming up again over and over and over against this Colossus. You know, David against Goliath here, this colossus of the unconscious mind that says you want to you want to practice lucid dreaming, but there's a huge part of you that says, I don't think so no anything to happen. Because on one level, as we'll see, when we talk when we're working, progressive stages of meditation on emptiness. Well, the way this plays out here that is incredibly important. is emptiness means cutting through form cutting through a parents. And so what is ego in this kind of bandwidth of our spectrum of identity? Ego, as you've heard me say many times is exclusive identification with form that's what ego is. So when we go from ego to Eagle as we're going from form to formless, how does this colossus of your egoic development relate to that is a death threat. It's like trying to it's like, drug RBJ famously said, you know, ego cannot attend its own funeral. These practices are a death threat to ego. And so therefore, again, if we understand development, we understand the spectrum, then we realize that growth transcends but includes the ego is just an arrested arrested form of development. It's just a way of funny way of looking at things you always have recourse to it. Just don't identify with it exclusively. So this is another thing that's so important. Why is it so hard to have lucid dreams? This is one massive reason why it's so hard. Because this these practices, again, that entry level, lucid dreaming so much, because that can actually feed the ego. But Dream Yoga for sure. It's designed to overthrow the government of ego. And do you think ego wants to go here? No, it doesn't. And so therefore, these resistances, these obstructions, these obstacles, they're all thrown up by this bandwidth, this part of the bandwidth of your identity, so I'm riffing on this a little bit because this is super important. And so for instance, metaphorically, again, this is really interesting. I was reading. I think it was the work of Bernardo kastrup. I'm really on his stuff these days. I mentioned him yesterday really smart, very interesting thinker, idealist, who writes in total Western language about the utter ridiculousness of the materialistic way. And that really the world is made of mind and meditation. And hold on a second. Here's a little sip of water.
And when I went in that into that segue, I went into a temporary mind burp. It'll come back to me there was something that Bernardo had to say, that just came in one thoughts streaming left the other. It'll pop back to me in a second. So I apologize for that hiccup. But the idea here is, until that pops back into my mind, Oh, yes. This is what he was saying. Yes, he came back to me. So what he's saying, and he uses the dream metaphor a lot, which is really cool, is that we should look at and I've done this over the years. And so when he said he was like, Well, this is awesome. He says, it's really helpful sometimes to look at your daily life. In fact, as if you were as if you were dreaming, because you are into therefore look at the symbolic metaphorical dreamlike, interpretive nature, what's happening in your experience to see everything is this kind of symbol. And so the reason I mentioned that is that, in the dreamscape, there may be part of you, and this is what I felt with myself. There may be you know, when we're trying to walk through walls, or we're trying to penetrate objects on the lake, there may be part of you that wants to be walled in, there may be part of you, your egoic part, again, that feels this kind of comfort, of being constrained by so called materiality, so called physicality. And so there's just a there's layer upon layer of revelation taking place here, when we try to engage in this practice, and the other ones coming up. And it's just not working. Excuse me, it's showing you where you're stuck. It's revealing these blind spots. So another little thing here, and then I think we're Yeah, a little bit more than that, we can pause and have discussion about this. The other thing that's super interesting around this practice, and all the other ones coming up, is that if you aren't controlling your dream,
and Robert Wagner writes a lot about this, who is who's controlling your dream, if you aren't, exactly what happens after death in the dream at the end of the time, and why that experience can be terrifying. It's only terrifying if you're not lucid to the process. And just only terrifying if you have all this undigested, unmetabolized unconscious material, if that's in fact, what's going to come to light in the Bardot's, it also comes to light in the dream. So if you're not controlling your dream, who are what is Well, again, backstage, Once on stage, your unconscious mind is and so you can learn a lot about your deeper self, by observing the dream environment and your inability to control that. So what we're going to be doing with this practice, and all the other ones coming up, is bringing the sayings as I said at the outset, bringing all these habit loops, these commas, into light of consciousness so that we can establish a relationship to them and eventually purify them, and bring them all in to the light of consciousness. Because until we do that, we're buffeted around whether we know it or not, by these unconscious processes, whenever you're affected adversely, whenever someone presses your buttons. Whenever you can't relate with total equanimity to whatever's happening. It's because you've installed those buttons. And really, the vast, vast, vast majority of what we do is not relating to the world as it is that's only the Buddha's do that is we're relating to our unconscious projections, our hopes, our fears, our constructs, virtually until you become awakened, everything you do is born from the extraordinary power of the unconscious mind to rule your so called Conscious lives. Remember, you know, Christ forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. So now we want to discover what we do and why we do it. And understanding the mind works at this level is super important. So what I want to do is, you know, for this next, whatever, three weeks or so four weeks, until we do our next session, let's together as a joint enterprise and practice. Let's set about this aspiration. We're going to do this eight times as we go through these next nine. The next eight stages is between now and then every night. Let's incubate for stage two. So dream incubation, super simple. It's been around for 1000s of yours, starting now and then in particular, especially when you're going to sleep using the laws of what's called proximate karma. That's when you really want to ramp this stuff up. You want to set a strong intentionality, twofold intentionality. Number one is lucidity. You know, I want to I want to attain lucidity. Tonight, I really want to have a lucid dream. So that that's the second order intentionality. So that I can practice stage two, so that I can wake up in my dreams, and try to walk through the dream wall, try to put my hand through the dream object, try to cut through a parent's track show, try to cut through appearance. And so let's do this as a joint venture. And then we can come back next session and maybe even start with a little bit. This is what we do and I do these retreats. How did we do? Do we have some success and maybe if we work with this kind of group mind. And when I did my three year retreat, one of the reasons these retreats are done in a group setting is according to the traditions, when you practice with the group, the power and the efficacy of your practice is amplified by the number of people that are really doing the practice. And so if that's true, then how many people we have 40 people listening, and who knows how else, how many, most of the people listen to these, after we record them, will have at least 40 like minded people that are all sending this intentionality. And again, because the world is made of mind, it's not made of matter. What we do can have this kind of transformational trans temporal communication, you never know, maybe together, we can bootstrap each other and support each other through this kind of deep inner space. And beyond this kind of same bandwidth. So for the next month, we go to sleep. Tonight, I'm going to have a lucid dream. So that I can walk through the dream wall. So I can put my hand through these dream objects. And we're going to do it, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work or not every single night between now and the next time we meet, this is our homework every single night and really mean it don't just flap your lips, and realize there's probably 100 people, at least in the community that's going to be doing this. And so we can have this kind of brute mind, I'm going to amplify this by 100 times. And I really want to attain the cities where I can start to explore this cutting through principle. It's colossal, there will be say when we go through, especially stage three coming up, and then stage four, those are the two other big ones connected to this. We're going to augment support these practices, they all bootstrap each other, all the stages kind of come back to reinforce each other. There's so much more to say about this and the importance of actually cutting through why why is this topic of such centrality in the highest schools of Buddhism? Why is it so bloody important, is really the source of all our suffering. So as we go through that set, the other narrative to understand is that this stuff has tremendous applicability. It's not just this let alone video game. It's not a philosophical parlor game. This stuff has tremendous liberating, the word is soteriology. This potential for liberation, by being able to cut through see through penetrate appearances, to get to what to reality. So the practice again is called Cadac. Fracture cutting through to primordial purity. What's the primordial purity, emptiness? Emptiness is that which is purified from the stains the adventitious defilements that impute solidity. So this practice, they can seem like, oh, geez, this is like, okay, cool. Well, this practice is really deep. Right? And we'll see more of this next time when we talk about stage three. And how when we learn to cut through, walk through the wall, cut through that thing, whatever appears, well, the next time you're in the middle of some huge life situation, some huge Glacia activity, conflicting emotion. You may just flash on the idea that, you know, this particular heavy duty anger I'm feeling this particular heavy duty jealousy, it doesn't matter what it is. It's no more real than that silly dream last night, where I walked through that wall, I can walk through I can penetrate this heavy emotional energy. I can penetrate this mental projection imputation in my so called real world, because I was working in my dream last night and so by directionality comes into play. This lucid dreaming practice. I can tell you, it's done this for me for decades. It will start to paying into your life you'll be in the middle of some weird difficult situation, and some silly insight from last night's dream. plopping through the ground or putting your hands through the dream wall will pop into your mind. And you'll go, whoa, wait a second, this incredible irritation I'm feeling right now is no more solid than that silly wall I walked through last night. So a lot more on that coming up. And I hope these preparatory comments again, this is totally what separates dreaming, yoga from lucid dreaming. It sets the narrative trajectory of what we're doing here what our aspirations are. And so for the next few minutes, we got a little bit questions, comments, offerings, if somebody has insights they want to share from their own dreams.
Now's the time we can talk about this stuff. I posted a few comments questions in the doc Andrew. But also there's some race hands, Chantal and someone Yeah. Okay, let's go to the race hands while I pull up the doc. Okay, Chantal, I felt Oh, hey,
I've got a comment and a question. Oh, far away. So my comment is, I'm so excited about this group energy and like, together, honestly, I just feel like thank God, like I kind of joined live like, it's the same time like that you've started this. So anyways, I'm just I just love your energy. It's awesome. Can't wait. And then, and then my question is, you mentioned about how Bob said the thing about dying unconsciously is dangerous. So Andrew, this has always been even a question of mine, even when I was little. So dementia. So if you were to die with dementia, when your brains not 100% there, and if you were to die suddenly. So we know when people have like, you know, chronic conditions, they have time to sort of wind down and die versus being tragically killed in a car accident where you don't even see it coming. So I wanted to know if you had any inclusions or anything regarding those two, because my understanding, if I'm correct is that it doesn't matter because you'll immediately enter the Bardo. And then you'll have time there to sort it through, which is why you need to know it in this life. So we can sort of like navigate that. But part of me is also thinking Oh no, what if you have to be conscious as you're dipping into it? Great questions.
And again, it's a little bit like what you just said at the very end is the two ways to attain lucidity even in the dream state. So if we want to have a lucid Bardo experience it follows exact same principles as a lucid dream experience so by that what I mean is you can take that lucidity with you in a gradual death what does that call that's called awake initiated lucid dream. That's exactly what you said were you tried to sustain lucidity awareness as you go from this state to the next right times. It doesn't always work that way. Then you have what's called the opportunity for Dream initiated lucid dream where exactly what you said prior to that last comment comes into play, where you can then we actually wake up within the dream. So two ways to achieve lucidity in the dream or in depth. You bring your awareness with you, a graduated slow descent piece, so called peaceful death can facilitate that because I'll come back to this, how this relates to dementia in a second. Okay, but if that doesn't work, then you always have the capacity to use dream initiated lucid dreaming or in this case, dream. Death initiated lucid death where something will clue you up to the fact that you're dead when you're dead. You attain lucidity within it. And so, you know, you're preparing for both of those eventualities. And so all is not lost. If you can't, if you die suddenly, very briefly, what to say about sudden death, if you have the opportunity, the instructions here are kind of as sudden and brief as the instance itself. You know, like if you're about to pull over and there's a truck there and you're going, Oh man, this is it. You do two things and I've asked teachers for this.
You literally raise your gaze you look up, literally look up because that brings the subtle energies and the winds up the central channel and through the Rama Ronda, this is inner yogic way to die. And the second thing you do is you recite a mantra or mandate from there's others but that's the best one. There's esoteric reasons for doing that. But you want to keep it super simple. And it really this is a type of what's called emergency POA where you can actually work with transferring moving your consciousness to these very simple gestures. And I let me share this thing I do this as a practice anytime things feel deathlike. In other words, I get some really bad news, I have some really ungrounded experience, I actually do that. It's like, oh my gosh, this is like a little death, I will actually do that I get a phone call someone I know and love just died, I will actually do that on Monday part of my home, I look up. So this is a way to practice it whenever you actually have a small death now. And you sensitize yourself to that, that then becomes your default. It's like saying design tight, you know, that becomes a habit. Anytime you experience a groundless thing, you can do those two things. So there's that the thing about dimension in the like, is again, this is another reason not only to understand a spectrum of identity along the horizontal axis, but also along the vertical axis. So we exist along a bandwidth in both those different vectors. And so in this case, we'll tell it to understand is yes, the gross aspect of your mind is being affected by gross aspects, the correlate of aspects of body, when the brain that generates that is gross aspect of body related to gross aspect of mind. When we work with these practices, we're working with subtle body subtle mind Substanz that and so when you drop below that most superficial level, these agents have no effect zero, because you're no longer working with brain. You're working with mind that actually Substanz the brain. And this is also again, you know, the idealist is one reason I'm such a fan of idealism, you know. And Bart Bernardo writes about this from a Western perspective, fantastically, the brain, mind is definitely not the brain. And so when you drop below that with dementia, or all the drugs that affect the mind, right, it doesn't affect that subtle dimension of your being. And so therefore, when we die, because we're becoming familiar with the subtle dimensions, it doesn't matter a whit, what's happening up there. Like a scuba diver, you're gonna you've learned how to dive below that doesn't matter what's happening with the surface chop, you're below that level, and you're familiar with that level. And you're going to be totally fine. So that's another yet another reason to do these types of practices in this work now. So you can kind of grease the skids develop comfort familiarity with the subtle dimensions, because that's where you're going when you die anyway, if I can sleep, you're going from gross to subtle to super subtle. And so if you're only identified with gross, then you're a little bit in trouble. Right? That's where things get problematic. But if you start to die to differentiate from let go of these, which is exactly what we're doing here, then it's just no big deal. Oh, I'm just dropping off. I'm dropping off the outerwear and then the underwear. And then I'm going to the you know, we're stripping down we're stripping miton mixing metaphors was stripping the mind down to the point where it just doesn't matter what happens at the superficial levels. And that's pretty triumphant. That's pretty powerful as a great gift of these wisdom traditions. So something like that.
That's awesome, Andrew,
thank you. Welcome, welcome. Good questions. So here's a couple that came in and then I'll come back to some live ones. Oh, Barry. Yeah. Talk of protection found on Carl Jung's wall. Oh, no kidding. Oh, that's cool. We could share that. I don't know if we can share that with people very sent me a little talk. I didn't realize he had that on his wall. Thanks, Barry. You're amazing. Share that. Yeah. Oh, here Ed O'Malley. Maybe we'll walk through each other's walls. What a wonderful idea. Yes, that's really beautiful. So we can make the aspiration that we will walk through each other's walls literally and metaphorically, as a way to penetrate the ways that we wall ourselves and others in very nice interjection my friend. That's beautiful. Yeah, so this is what screenshare from from Barry. Yeah, that's a yantra that's fantastic. Yeah, tours or mantras and audible form. That's what it looks like to me also looks like it has some Chinese hexagram stuff in there as well. Well, that is super interesting. So you got looks like Manjushri on top Tara. And then either butcher Pawnee or MA ko I can't tell. So this is the whatever this is, this is interesting. So you've got you've got a little bit of a wheel of life you've got but then you've got this Chinese hexagram stuff. Are you sure you just didn't draw this on an acid trip very. Like you got, let's throw a little of Mohammed Jesus and Buddha and here why not? This is awesome. But then down here, you've got Tibetan script. Whoa, that that's killer cool and still Maha was holding it in. Excellent, my friend. I've never seen that. When Jushi Tara and I think that's Virgil pani. Oh, no, you know, you know what that is? No, I take that back. That's why showpony Manjushri and then have a look at the spiral. So these are the three primordial bodhisattvas compound compassion, wisdom and power. That's who they are. And then you got the color chakra on the upper left. And the rest of this stuff I can't figure out. Whoa. I feel like I'm on an acid trip right now. That's great, Barry. Thanks, man. Thank you so much that we that's really cool. That's really cool. So a question from Tim. And then we'll take one from Sonya. And then Eric Young took Freud's concept of the unconscious further and deeper, and even studied yoga himself. Oh, yeah. Tim, I mean, I'm a huge fan of Carl Jung. In fact, I'm doing a presentation for this union society, on all topics on suicide. Yeah, I'm scared crapless. In the fall, I'll let you know about that as it comes up. I'm a colossal fan of Carl Jung, incredible thinker. Not only did he take yoga, he wrote the introduction to the first translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He was extraordinarily interested in in Tibetan Buddhism mandola principle. He knew all about lucid dreaming didn't really endorse it for a number of reasons. Not only did he take Freud's concept of the unconscious further, he took it all the way down into the collective unconscious. Yeah, I mean, what I'm a colossal fan of Carl Jung, for sure. So he was a very sensitive thinker. Absolutely. So shot a Sonya has a raised hand.
Hi, Andrew, and everyone, thank you. Again, it's always the most exciting time of the week to spend time with you. And anyway, my use of dreaming has not been as active as it once was. But nevertheless, I did have this kind of an offering that was really exciting. And I think because I have been really working on my meditation practice, my nan grow, and so on. summer when I did have a lucid dream for the first time and maybe two or three months, a couple of weeks ago. I really, and this is also a teaching from Lama Yoshi, low salt Rinpoche in summary length, and I'm sure you know, there's some do this too. But, you know, you said, What first thing you do when you get an A dream, I am lucid. Therefore, everything is mind. Therefore, there are no limitations. Therefore, anything is possible. So I'm trying really hard now to remember when I'm lucid. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm lucid, therefore, therefore, therefore, therefore. But I had a dream. And maybe this is would be stage three. But where I wanted to, I could hold it if it's relevant. But I had I had a, I realized I was lucid in some bizarre kitchen. And I thought, Oh, the next thing I have to do is multiply things. So we need an object. And well, I'm in a kitchen, how about an orange? And so I tried to create an orange. I didn't really have any background, it was just these hands now with the orange came together first in pieces and peels. I said, No, no, you have to be a whole orange like, this is ridiculous. And then I got an orange. And I said, now I need lots of oranges. Anyway, I made three oranges. So it was about the most exciting thing has ever happened in my entire life.
You should squeeze out and have some orange juice.
Next time. Anything's possible. So then, you know, that was just too much excitement, I think. And actually, I'm still having a hard time stabilizing things in there. So that was great. And I anyway, still want to meet spiritual practitioners. But I have two questions for you. One is, and I've probably asked it before, but I need to hear it in with my newer mind. And one is I've heard before from lamas, that after a certain number of lucid dream experiences in this human realm, that you can feel fairly certain that at some time in this protracted time in the Bardo, that you'll probably be aware and wake up. And there is actually I've heard a couple of numbers on that. So I wanted to know if you had one of those numbers so we can feel more assured because I'm not. I don't imagine I can be lucid all night every night before I you know, the curtain comes down. And Yamo comes from me, but that was one question. The other question is, when you personally practice at night, aside from setting the intention, the twofold intention, do you also practice Dream Yoga with Amitabha and Omani Tara? Every night?
Yes. So here's what I do. So every night yeah, I have my own little special sense strategy, lucid sleep mindset thing. You know, going through it all may be a little bit too lengthy for now but what you say is true every every single night Barnatan and I learned this practice from two konima Rinpoche I ay ay recite. Amitabha is mantra or mommy, they were three, I visualize him on the top of my head. And then I recite it three times I dissolve that there's elevation, and make it rest in My Heart Center. So I have a very intimate connection, deep connection to, but Amitabha it's actually a little bit of greasing the skids for poets who cavity as well. So I do that every single night. I don't do Tara Tara is not one of my deities. I do other things for Jeanne chakras and borrow things like that. But Tara is not one of the ones that I actively work with.
I didn't mean Tara, I meant the mantra on our new Tara.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Oh, monotaro. Yes. So yes, this all this I learned also from the tradition and Lama. I mean, I'm sorry, Dr. Nida right. So he riffs on this. Yeah. That yeah, those are the six syllables of of the Buddha families on on on on new Tara. They're also connected to the lotus visualization. Right. So you usually have it right here, but I don't have a you know, the red load. Oh, here it is. Yeah, yeah, I know. This guy on new Tada. There it is on new Tada. So yeah, on our new toddler, this is a little bit beyond what I can talk about now. But yes, that's what you're saying. I absolutely, positively do that as well. Because then the syllables, this is inner yogic, there's so much to say here that's coming up later. It's like going to sleep tucked tucked into sleep talking to bed. And I said, What's your order
of events? Like? Do you do the visualization of Amitabha before and then say my intention is I will be lucid times 21 or whatever number?
Yeah, yeah. So the intentionality just perfumes everything I'm doing before I go to bed. And then depending on where I am some of the stuff that I teach, I don't do anymore, because it's just automatic. And I kind of don't need to do it. So usually what I do, I don't do the 21 breathing thing unless I'm kind of really speedy. I almost always not almost every night before I go to sleep, I do some meditation, I do my particular liturgy. So I'm already going to sleep, reconstructing my little temple of sleep before I even hit the hit the bed. Then I go to sleep. I do Amitabha on top of the head, I do the recitation three times I dissolve them into my heart. And then I transition into the throat. If I'm doing sleep, yoga, heart and Dream Yoga, throat, Lotus, new Tada. And then I work with the whole Lotus The sad thing. And all the while is just intentionality. perfuming the whole thing right? Tonight, I'm going to attain lucidity. And then sometimes it's open ended. Sometimes it's nice to just see what happens other times, like now specific so that I can you know, I'll leave or sometimes say stage two because I know what that is. Or I'll say so that I can walk through walls or whatever. Okay, so just to keep it really simple. That is the kind of approach that I do. And there's so many reasons beyond the scope of what I can answer now for doing that, but that stuff super works, at least for me. Okay, good.
And the last thing lest we forget the number. Is there like a number we should
leave that? Yes. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, you know, again, if you read the liturgies, the texts, seven times is the number. Padma Sun bhava says, if you can attain lucidity seven times, you're going to be fine. And the bar goes, well, it's an archetypal number. It's not literal. So basically, what it means is some level of constancy. What does that really mean? You know, like, do I have to have lucidity every single night? No, I don't think so. Because the really good thing about the Bardot's, as in the dream state is everything's magnified, everything's heightened. And so chances are actually very strong that the dream at that end of time, first of all, lasts a lot longer. And so all this stuff that we're studying, practicing working with, it's it's affecting you whether you know it or not, it's working. This is the power of the unconscious mind. So when the unconscious mind is unleashed, it's not all bad news. If in fact that unconscious mind you know, like I playfully say you're stuffing the ballot box steeping, you're impregnating your, your unconscious mind with all these healthy streams and so those healthy streams will take really good care of you when you die. So that part of the unconscious mind and this is why it helps to always remember to engage in your Practice using what's called the three trainings. Everything is based on morality ethics, you cannot you can practice lucid dreaming that you know, maybe I'll say that next time to talk about the three trainings. That's important. So note to self, give me one second to draw this, this is important. I did not have this in my Dream Yoga Book, so it's worth interjecting. You can practice lucid dreaming without any of this stuff. You cannot practice Dream Yoga without this stuff. And so a note to sell for next time. We'll talk about what's called the Trish shiksha, the three trainings. Without it, the stuff won't work. It's implied I don't think it's in the book. It's implied, but I want to make it over. She loves somebody and project now the first thing is Sheila, which is morality, ethics, you can't practice Dream Yoga without a basis of morality and ethics. It just doesn't work. So that's another again part of this preparatory thing that warrants some comment. And next time, I will run a commentary on that. But the number is seven departments and Baba and other teachers write about it's in the texts. It's an archetypal numbers, not literal, it really depicts some level of constancy. And therefore it's a little ambiguous, you know, to what level I Oh, geez, can we like slam dunk? Oh, if I reach 10, lucid dreams, I'm going to be totally fine in the Bardo. I can't say who knows. But chances are pretty good. If you devote your life and you're a good person and you do this kind of good stuff, you will be taken care of by the force of that goodness. And obviously, the more you bring about acidity, which is colder for awareness, the better off you're going to be. So I'm always extremely cautious. When teachers give really specific literal metrics like that. Every teacher I've pressed on this, every single one tells me don't take these and take them seriously, but don't take them literally. And so that's the way you have to kind of play with this stuff.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you again, for everything.
Oh, god, you're very welcome. So, Eric, I'll get to you in one second. You're next I want to get a written question here. From placer. Hi, Andrew, I became lucid in one of my dreams, it was dark. So I set my intention to visit my guides. Cool. Took a few seconds in dream time, and I moved to a beautiful locale, which was bright, and I was able to converse with them. But there was a barrier I could not cross. That's interesting. I also had a dream where I became lucid, but I could not control it. What's the difference? Oh, a? Oh, these are big subtle questions, dear. You know, again, this is a little bit tricky for me, because this is a really sensitive, intelligent question. And I don't want to just rapid fire an answer here. We, you know, the barrier thing. Barriers are metaphors. Again, that's what the dream is revealing. It's like when you die all these images of coming up against grand chasms and deserts and mountains. These again are they represent the chasms represent habitual patterns that we've dug. The mountains represent barriers that we've created. Everything is is metaphoric in that sense. And so the fact that you've came across a barrier that you could not cross that is incredibly common. What that is, I can't say this is the type of thing you have to work out with yourself with your dream guides or with a therapist somewhere where you can I mean, we're our lives are ringed by these veils these barriers that in the Buddhist tradition talks about them the two primary classifications of veils, barriers of conflicting emotions and the veils barriers of ignorance. Keisha varna and geneia Varna. So these barriers could represent and I can't speak to that without really extensive conversation with you. And first of all, not a therapist, so I couldn't really answer it. But what you're saying is extremely common. And you may notice later that other kinds of obstacles arise, chasms, mountains, deserts and the like. These all represent things and so what I recommend for you look at the work of Eugene Gamblin, a really brilliant body worker, psychiatrist, who wrote this book, let your body interpret your dreams. You can figure this out for yourself, you can actually incubate to have a dream to help you decode this, or you can actually do the exploration so you can interpret these things for yourself that will have a lot more impact than somebody else coming in. In fact, it's somewhat I think, arrogant, but what I was trained, in fact, listen to the interview I did with FAR Reba bugs around and she talks about this, that when you're being asked To interpret another person's dream, first of all, I hardly ever do it. Secondly, if I am pressed, sometimes I'll say something like, well, if this was my dream, this is what it would represent. I can't enter your life, I can't enter your dream mind. I don't know for you. But there are with that said, there are somewhat standard, symbolic. You know, for me, water always represents the unconscious mind, in my dreams. I have a particular vocabulary that I've decoded throughout my life, for what things represent in my dreams. And so you can start to kind of create this glossary of symbols for you, and then the stuff will have a lot of impacts. So that one I that's, that's pretty much all I can do with that. I was Vitor dreamer, I became lucid cannot control it. That's also super common on one level, that could be simply what's called a witnessing dream. And that there's a lot of power in that as well, where you're lucid. It's called pet lucidity, sometimes, where you lose it and you just watch it, you either don't want to control it or you can't. Well, like why you can't that's that depends on a number of things. Maybe part of you doesn't want to maybe there's this conflict of interest thing going on? So a little tricky for me to go too much deeper with such a lovely question. Because it just enters the domain of discourse this a little bit beyond what we can do on a forum like this, I hope you understand. But personally, the take home message from what you're asking is do these explorations for yourself. Incubate for clarity within your own dreams. That's where the real insights come from, don't they? That's where the real power comes from. When you make these revelations insights for yourself, so what I would do is incubate for answers yourself through your meditation, through your
dreams. And then the two books actually the second book I'd recommend the first one is let your body interpret your dreams. The second one is by my dear friend, David Rome, who is amazing all the people that live in this hood, there's some amazing people in my area. David wrote this book called Your body knows the answer. deeply connected to Eugene's work in a really sensitive exploration of this type of thing that that fundamentally these answers are all within you. And so I would recommend is just to support you look at those two, your body knows the answer by David Rome and the other one, and then make this exploration for yourself. Okay. Okay, Eric fire we've been.
Andrew, great to see you. Yeah. Nice to see you. So, Charles mentioned of dementia had sparked a question that I've had on my mind for a little bit. If I were to run into or if you were to run into somebody who was on their deathbed, or recently died, in a lucid dream, are there practices that you would do or recommend, or that are in the teachings that you can perform to help these people who are either you know, my, for example, my grandmother has dementia, she's in a nursing home, and I do some, some tonglen for her and try to visit her dabbling, a little bit of polo. But I've never had any formal teachings on it. And I'm just curious if I were to run into her in a dream, or a friend who recently passed, what might I do
it while you're in the dream? Right? You know, what a great question. Yeah. Well, this is awesome. A number of things one is actually guide them. You can say something really as simply as whatever her name is, you know, let's say it's Marianne. Marianne. Whoa, how great to meet you here. No, it's really good for you to know that you've passed. And that it's all cool. I'm going to be here for you are going to be taking care of you fundamentally, Eric, what you want to do. And this is I mean, this is like people are listening and go I just get this is like so out there. Well, it's not out there. It's only out there in a materialistic universe. It's not out there. In here, when the universe is made of mind. Right? That's again, why studying these teachings on idealism and non dualistic mind are so important because without that view, what Eric is asking is just ridiculous at best, and Bs and worse, but it's not. It's you can absolutely positively help people in the dream state. But with that said, as a framing caveat, that what I do is you can literally just guide them as if you were in life and you can simply say To them, you may or may not be aware, you may not be aware of it, it may seem like really dreamlike to you, you may be a little bit confused, but I'm here to help you, you've actually passed and it's all good, everybody does it, you're gonna be fine. You've left, you've led a really great life. And you can also, you know, the overarching frame that should inform you is just to create an environment, a space, a mental container, that allows them to just open and relax. So whatever it does, that is what you want to do. And sometimes, you know, if they believe in God, if they believe in Muhammad, you say, go towards the light, go go to God, God will take care of you don't bring in your stuff. Don't Don't say Oh, but you know, don't do that. So that's where it's helpful to know where they are. And then just basically, whatever you can do to help them relax. You can also do that during day. I mean, there's so many other things you can do like Tong land, and POA, doing POA for others. That's pretty tricky, pretty advanced. I probably wouldn't think about that. In fact, I'm a certain sense, what you're doing actually is a type of POA. If you haven't read it, Eric, and sorry for that, pitching my book, but my book, preparing to die has a whole chapter on what to do for people after they've died. Everything you can do for someone in waking life you can do in your dreams. And so I'm going to refer you to that for the purposes of time, because there's a lot you can do. But the simplest thing is this sort of thing. And then afterwards, dedicating merit, there's so much to the power of intentionality that can be directed. But mostly, if you actually have that power and the lucid dream, you just want to help them you want to relax with them. Maybe, maybe say, Here, take my hand, and I'll go with you, and then let them lead and just see where they go. And then that may just give them some sense that they're not alone. But the fundamental journey is whatever you can do to make them open, relax, and just realize it's time to release and go forward. That's all you have to do as a framework. And then often what'll happen is they'll either say something, or something will come to you, or then you'll know what to do. So the trick with this is you don't want to just cold shrink, wrap everything and these pigeonholed prescriptions. The view is the overarching thing. And then some of the specificities are just part of what the tradition says. But some of those don't really translate so much for Westerners. So for me, it's more like understanding the process with the overarching view is interesting.
Yeah, no, that's great. I haven't I haven't read. That's one of the few of yours that I haven't gotten to yet. So that'll be helpful. Yeah,
we'll section on there's there's a lot a lot we can do. So, especially when you're standing reality is the nature of mind again, we have a lot more power than we think we can really help these mutations making this journey.
Great. Hey, I appreciate it.
Thanks, bud. Good question. So one from Chris, and then maybe one more than unfortunately, others. Yeah, I probably need to run or walk. So from Chris had a dream where I became lucid and was able to control what the characters were thinking. Cool. After a little while, it became apparent that I was all those characters, isn't it? Even though they were all different genders, physical appearances, etc. Wow, what a great dream. Once I realized that they were all created from and controlled by my mind, I lost interest in. Oh, that's actually quite funny. The question is, Is there something I could have done to bring that dream to another level? Yes, this this ties into? Oh, let me think about this for just a second.
Yeah, you know what you could have done, again, what I might have done, once you realize that all these characters were just projections of your own mind is instead of kind of entering whatever, gender, physical appearance, etc, was actually arising within itself, that's really cool, by the way, is I might have somewhat in the spirit of stage three that we'll talk about next time. I might have intentionally generated these other whatever they were entities beings. So in other words, this is part of stage three practice where you can actually create your avatar so to speak, or whatever you want to call it. One that's different gender one that's really tall one that's really why when That's really you know, obese one that's really skinny. One that's really whatever you can then also do it with, you can also project into like animal forms on the lake. And so the reason for doing this, Chris, I'm going to put a tiny hold on that because that a little bit preemptive, that's what we're going to talk about in stage three, how, like, why would you do that? What's what that's about. But I think what comes to mind, if I was to have a dream like that, that's what I would do. But first of all, the fact that you have that that's really cool dream. And then so if in fact that arises, again, I would just bring a little bit more intentionality behind it a little bit more directionality, where you can then start to shape shift these these entities wherever they are, and see how you, your mind can become this kind of chameleon. And again, next next time we get together, I'll say a little bit more about like the view behind it, like why you want to do that. So that's something that I would consider playing with. Okay. Excellent. Yeah. So I think that's probably it for today. Thank you, everybody. This is a cool track. Oh, yeah. And thanks, Andy, for adding that for next time, the three trainings that restructure. So that's what we're going to do next time. Stage three, I am going to talk about the three trainings. Because again, when we start to do this kind of deeper work, this these infrastructure practices become really important. They're part of what can actually guarantee to whatever extent these practices can be guaranteed to be successful within this larger framework. So thank you, everybody, for showing up. I really appreciate it. If everybody wants to turn on their speaker, turn off your mute. Everybody can say hi, Eli is Hi Andrew. Are you thank you, plastic much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew and Andy.
