From: Dave (dfisher_at_pophost.com)
Date: 2002-02-26 15:12:10
On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 16:01:32 +0100, Joerg Hansmann wrote:
>> When I began experiencing dreaming consciously,
>
>Was this a result of NFB or experiments with binaural beats or spontaneous ?
At that point, neither. I worked closely with a professor during college years
who was a rather interesting cross between Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Billy
Graham. We did a lot of therapeutic work together, and he had this one
technique he called "dream implosion." Essentially, it is reliving dream
content from a relaxed, conscious state and then letting the content unfold in
order to offer insight and resolution to personal issues. I had some traumas I
was dealing with at the time, and this process was helping me understand the
emotive content. Interestingly enough, I would not use this approach to work
with disturbing emotional content anymore, but that's another story. It did
serve, however, to act as a bridge between my emotive and intellectual self.
So I continued to implode my dreams and journal the results. The act of
journalling helped me consciously process that which I experienced in the
quasi-dream state of the "implosion."
This is what I attribute to the advent of conscious dreaming for me. It took
me by complete surprise. I recall the first incident quite vividly because I
was in the midst of a nightmare. The fear was very intense. All of a sudden,
I was conscious in the dream. I can't say that I enjoyed this, as the
circumstances were not very pleasant. Why couldn't I become conscious while
frolicking on the beach of some far flung planet? Or exploring the mysterious
catacombs of an Egyptian pyramid? Noooo.... it had to be the nightmarescape of
my own fears. Well, without going into too much detail, I decided that at that
point I had had enough, and launched myself into the heart of my worst fears
and did battle with them.
Lucidity continued to occur spontaneously a couple of times a year after that
until I began to explore L/S machines, which took it to a completely new level.
>> I realized that something was
>> missing in the usual way we experience consciousness; and that there was a
>> bridged state that was neither waking consciousness, nor sleeping
>> consciousness. It was a third state altogether. At that point I began doing
>> some searching into what was happening to me and came across the whole field of
>> lucid dreaming.
>
>Very interesting. I am trying to have lucid dreams for several years now,
>using the methods of Tholey and LaBerge but with very little success.
I've read LaBerge, but am not familiar with Foley. There are some places I
really resonate with my own experience (in the way other's reach this
particular state) and other things which do not. While I think there are some
commonalities which are important, a lot of this is the daily work of
recognizing that your dreaming mind and waking mind are the same thing. They
are not separate. Right now I am experiencing myself in a room, typing at a
keyboard, having all the same types of sensations that I experienced last night
in the dreaming state. And *those* experiences play at the edges of my mind
right now, just as *these* experiences will play a role in my dreaming
experience. What we are doing is convincing ourselves that they can both play
together. And play nicely. Based on some of the horrific experiences I have
had, I think the latter is important. ;)
>Can you outline how your induction method works ?
It is rather straightforward, and involves many elements found in literature on
the subject today. I don't think I have anything new to add there. However, I
did include an e-mail I wrote to a friend on this subject at my website at
http://www.psychosensory.com/projections.html, or more specifically... just a
sec...
Ok, I just re-read what I put out there
(http://www.psychosensory.com/docs/m081501.txt). There is so much more that
can be said, that then I would end up writing a book just like everyone else.
It gives an idea of the induction process I use, though. Understand that it
takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours for me to project, and I am not
always successful. It is easiest to do this in the morning, especially in the
wee hours around 5-6am after you have an a good night's sleep, and you are in
REM more frequently than not.
But I am more than glad to dialogue with you on this more if you want to bounce
some ideas off me for your own practice. It is a bit off-topic, though, for
the creation of EEG devices though, so we might want to take it off-list or to
some place like Mind-L. :)
Warmly,
Dave.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : 2002-07-27 12:28:38 BST