Lucid Dreaming: Part 1

The art of dreaming represents a fundamental difference between the modern scientific understanding of dreams and the hunter-gatherer archaic description of reality. In the latter it is believed that dreams can be consciously controlled and used to enhance the well-being of the practitioner and the tribe. Dreams are an important source of information, which is independent of the sequential time framework of consensus reality. The shamanic belief is that dreams are actually the source of waking consciousness, and that one dream can completely alter the entire life of an individual. Even in the Western experience, many creative and scientific discoveries have originated from the world of dreams.

Reality can be divided into waking, dreaming and sleeping states. The concept of meditation is that these three levels can be permanently unified by the breathing pattern at the deepest level of sleep, which is when the physical body is the most rejuvenated by the pre-birth energy system.

Buddhism has a very strong component of dream work, as in the following description of dream yoga:

The Middle Way view provides the philosophical framework of the contemplative practice of dream yoga. In a nonlucid dream—in which there is no recognition that one is dreaming—all objective phenomena seem to exist by and of themselves. They, like one’s own personal self in a dream, seem to be real. But upon awakening, one recognizes that neither one’s own mind nor any person or situation encountered in the dream had any such independent existence. This is equally true during the waking state, and in the daytime practice of dream yoga one maintains this awareness as constantly as possible. Everything experienced throughout the day—contrary to appearances—arises in relation to one’s perceptions and conceptions. Every person encountered is perceived in relation to one’s own sensory and conceptual faculties. Never does one encounter the radically and absolutely “other,” for apprehension of the other is always dependent upon one’s own subjective perspective. Thus, upon fathoming the emptiness of inherent existence of all waking phenomena, one maintains throughout the day a sense of the dreamlike quality of all events, recognizing the profoundly intersubjective nature of all relationships with other beings and the environment.
- B. Alan Wallace, Contemplative Science

In shamanic cultures, it is believed that dreaming presents an opportunity to avoid misfortune in waking life, if fears and obstacles are successfully confronted and transcended in the dreamworld. Even though many scientists solve significant theoretical problems using dream information, our culture has only just begun to understand and investigate the potential of dream practices, including lucid dreaming, to enhance creative problem solving. Artists and poets and writers are clearly dependent upon dream information from the unconscious, yet very few scientists are using hypnosis or self-suggestion to achieve greater clarity in dreams.

True Nature of the Mind

According to the Mahamudra and Mahasandhi/Ati yoga systems, considered the most advanced philosophical sciences of Tibetan civilization, the true nature of the mind is complete and perfect awareness; the underlying purpose of reality is to achieve a greater level of creative awakening through the self-observation of the Original Mind.

The human body perceives reality in terms of waking, dreaming and sleeping states of consciousness in which material, dream and primordial levels form the structure of the mind. The completion stage of meditation results in a union of the three bodies—material, subtle and super subtle, which is both the trikaya of Buddhist meditation theory and the Trinity of Christian Gnosticism. The Christian Trinity is also the description of the three bodies, known in Sanskrit as nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. In Latin alchemical terminology we have corpus (physical body), anima (soul), and spiritus (original spirit).

The true Philosopher's Stone of Western civilization is the deepest level of the unconscious mind and is represented as the Secret of the Golden Flower in Chinese alchemy and as the kundalini in Indian yoga. In Buddhism this primordial level of awareness is described as the dharmakaya truth or reality body, which must be united with the sambhogakaya (subtle body) for true Buddhahood to occur.

The concept of the three bodies and their union is the basis of non-theistic Asian inner science. These inner sciences are based upon thousands of years of thought- experimentation in which full-brain activation is sought using a variety of techniques that access the original energy of the body. Inner science includes internal alchemy, the Six Yogas of Naropa, meditation, breathing exercises and sexual yoga.

Until recently, it was not understood that the Spiritual Embryo of Taoist cultivation was the Truth body of Buddhism, the kundalini of yoga, and the hermetic androgyne of Western alchemy. The Tibetan description of the completion stage of meditation is the union of mother and son lights, with the mother light representing the dharmakaya body and the son light representing the sambhogakaya. In China, the union of mother and son lights is described originally as the marriage of the dragon and tiger. All these terms used are really trying to describe the same concepts—the dragon and tiger are the dharmakaya and sambhogakaya bodies, the causal and astral bodies, and the spirit and the soul. The process of uniting material, subtle and void levels of reality into a single whole is represented as the Tao, as well as the Western term The Great Work.

The Christian Gnostic description of enlightenment is based upon the union of body, soul, and spirit. The human body is composed of interdependent fields of matter, sound and light. The completion stage of authentic meditation is based on the unification of sound and light, which is the basis of Tantric Yogic theory. In many cases, the theory and methodology of subtle body activation has been lost in modern times.

Changing Mental Patterns: Hypnosis

Hypnosis is actually the safest and most effective method of adjusting probabilities by changing mental patterns. The hypnotic state can be used to greatly enhance learning ability as well as creativity and the healing of the body. The average individual is functioning within an incomplete trance state with a greatly repressed unconscious. The integration of the conscious and unconscious levels of perception can be greatly enhanced by the use of medical hypnosis. The possibilities of combining Chinese medicine with hypnosis and chi gong have tremendous potential for optimum healing.

The ultimate potential of hypnosis has not been fully explored by Western science. The ability of the mind to access information using suggestion is a probable future use of hypnosis combined with thought experimentation. The story of how Rachmaninov regained his creative excellence after daily hypnotic therapy is a good example of a non-pharmaceutical means of integrating the waking consciousness with the creative unconscious. The creative unconscious, which actively seeks an artistic integration with the waking world of conscious reality can enhance the performing aspects of the self.

Much of success in any field of inquiry is dependent upon the performance level of the individual, and this level can be greatly increased using suggestion. Any specific skill or creative ability can be tremendously enhanced in an extremely short period of time using hypnotherapeutic methods. This includes both physiological and mental changes, both of which improve the performance of the individual. Chi gong includes hypnosis and self-hypnosis; it is a method of combining energy cultivation with trance as a means of generating health and longevity. It also leads to kundalini activation.

Whatever creative project a person is working upon in waking reality is often the subject of dreams. These dreams can be guided and shaped with hypnotic suggestion so that it affects the conscious and unconscious level, and ultimately the integration of both. In terms of Western science, hypnosis is the key to consciousness integration because it is the only non-pharmaceutical means in Western medicine to unite the conscious and unconscious levels of the mind.

Enhancing creativity as well as longevity should be the goal of medical science. Each individual has the ability to rapidly evolve to greater levels of perception by the correct use of hypnosis.

If used incorrectly, hypnosis has resulted in false memory recovery syndrome. The mental compliance aspect between the hypnotherapist and individual is also threatening to the Western concept of individuality. Hypnosis was the original basis of Freud's work. The Western concept of the unconscious comes from his observations after he administered post-hypnotic suggestion to individuals. The definition of neurosis as a repressed unconscious "id" which must be controlled by the superego, represents a view of inner conflict as the basis of Western culture. The conflict between the id and the superego is the basic duality, which is unified through the completion stage of meditation. The conjunction of opposites actually represents the unification of the id and the superego, which results in an integration of perception.

Hypnosis works so well medically that it should be included in all future scientific endeavors. Very few scientists have understood that an integration of unconscious and conscious information will lead to greater discoveries and breakthroughs. Western culture values speed above any other commodity and hypnosis can be used as a means to greatly increase the speed of creative discovery in any scientific field. Creative discovery leads to greater truth, the goal of science as a whole.

Probable Reality

The idea of probable reality is that there isn't any one independent reality according to quantum physics, that there are actually multiple probable realities. So you could even describe your own life as being multiple probable realities, with each day that you've lived being a parallel probable you.

What you see with the concept of all the cells in your body being fully replaced in seven years, means that every seven years you are a totally different probable version with an illusion that it's the same you. Basically what we're saying is that there is a you that's ten years old, there's a you that's not alive, there's a you that was never born, there's a you that's the opposite sex, there's a you that's fully enlightened, there's a you that is African - that there are multiple parallel probable and alternative versions of yourself, and there are multiple parallel probable and alternative versions of anything that you can conceive of or that's observable. What we have here is multiple multidimensional probable versions of anything which appears to exist by itself, where we're aware of it or not. This is the consequence of scientific inquiry, and is what the idea of the multi verse is based upon.