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Hi guys, I’ve been doing the exercises from DVD 1 for five months for about an hour a day, everyday. A lot of that has been exclusively monk holding the pearl and monk gazing at the moon. I’m not quite sure I’m feeling the benefits that are listed in here. I’m wondering if I could get some input on what I could do to troubleshoot? My guess is to seek out a teacher in person. But if that’s the case, can I find any in Europe? Or is my best bet to save up for a trip to see Terry himself? I did have a dream where Terry sat on a swing and explained I might have too high expectations for the practice - so maybe it’s just that.

A few comments fwiw... Visualization practice and daydreaming are closely related as both involve fixing the attention in imagery, one spontaneous and the other contrived at first, ultimately becoming spontaneous. As we sharpen our familiarity and degree of focus in generating a mental image, it is no surprise that dreaming (day and/or night) may become more vivid and more pronounced. Headaches, as mentioned, are likely a sign of too much tension and effort. In the Bön paradigm, violence in our dreams suggests activation of (or fixation on) the throat chakra which is related to the asura (demi-god) realm. Characteristics of this realm include a tendency toward endless violence related to pride, wrath, a sense of lack or need, and related emotions. Our day (and night) dreams reflect whatever is affecting us in life at any given moment. This includes suppressed and repressed psychological content, memories and so on, but also whatever we are exposed to in our day to day. Are we watching or reading news (violence), are we playing video games (violence), practicing martial arts (violence), watching films and series (so much violence)? Is there repressed/suppressed violence in our past or that of our loved ones and ancestors? It's certainly present in our societies - we are immersed in and pervaded by violence if we are not cautious consumers and this will undoubtedly be reflected in our dream life. What to do? If working with deity visualization, deity yoga, mantra and so forth, I think it's very important to have some expert guidance. This includes transmission and permission to practice. In Bön and Buddhism there is a practice called the Six Lokas practice. This is a way to purify and transform negative emotions and interrupt dysfunctional patterns related to being stuck in one of the six samsaric realms through visualization and mantra. Dream Yoga is another wonderful practice for addressing when we are stuck in samsaric patterns and experiences. These are just two examples, not intended to be personalized recommendations. My own practice focuses much more on a dzogchen approach at this point. I think it's important for each of us to find what fits and works well for us. Finally, doing whatever we can to address the psychological variable and our relationship to external stimuli are critical pieces of the spiritual puzzle.

Anyone with those thoughts is having an issue and needs help . if its gone now and you just had a random dream about it , dont worry about it . if it recurs and you start going back into that original state you described - get help .

No one implied not dealing with the world of the shared dream. Again you infer meaning that is not shared or implied. Pondering the dream like nature of reality is not rejecting or ignoring.

I'm only responsible for what I wrote though, not for how you interpret it. In any case, there lots of reasons someone can see a therapist for, it's not only for disorder treatment or seeking a behavioural adjustment as you suggest. Eg understanding why things happen is one of the common reasons, which was the question in the OP. Anything that occurs systematically either like in this post through daydreaming ( not because of it ), or a recurring dream is worth exploring. It's ok, it's clear you were reacting to something different to what I wrote but it was also worth discussing that psychotherapists are not there only for disorder treatment. They're also infinitely more likely to help the OP find why it's happening, than internet forums.

As it's something that's impossible to prove and at the same time impossible disprove, it's like the universe is trolling us... I ignore them because what is one to make out of them, fry their brain if it was a synchrinicity? Impossible to answer. And let's say, for the sake of the argument, there even was a way to tell in retrospect. Then what? What is one supposed to do with their next dream, assume it has predictive value and act on it? They're bound to be disappointed after 1-2-3 dreams. Hence I ignore the cosmic trolling

I don't know what the events are, but to causally link them one would need other planes/dimensions a la Plato's cave ( or Jung's Unus Mundus ). Now as to what the events are there, no clue. Another interesting nugget, this one not from my own, but from someone else's experiences ( without going into details publicly as it's someone else's stuff ), is that for the vision/dream component may [*] be linked to a different point in spacetime, which I found interesting. Without going into details I fully trust that experience as a genuine one. [*] may, as in it could also be memories of the sort epigenetics describes and the physical part that followed can be a coincidence, impossible to tell if a candidate synchrinicity is after all just an odd coincidence.

I think there is a secondary problem as well. If the ancient sages are right, the experienced relative is not material, but mental. Whether you accept this lightly, as in whatever we experience is impacted by our mental structures; or more strongly, in recognizing that everything is fundamentally a cooperative dream; the end result is the same. In modern terms, the lighter version is captured by predictive processing or the interface theory of perception and the heavier by the simulation hypothesis. If relative reality is partially or entirely related to the turnings or waves of the mind, then solidified beliefs can edit, diminish, or erase what is perceived or known. Similarly, the all creating mind can produce or focus on experiences and states consistent with what one is seeking or expecting to find--- one reason why diverse and contradictory belief systems have long survived in the world. So people who dispute or close their mind to the absolute may never know it. Or they may create an object or experience of it, and take the thief for one's own child, as the Chan masters used to say.

That's a good point, things need definition, otherwise we could well be talking about a voleyball ball a football ball and describe different things by referring to them as ball. The definition of synchronicity I had in mind is the Jungian one, so a spiritual event ( be it dream, vision etc ) followed by physical events that are connected to the spiritual event but not causally connected. E.g. you dream of X , whom you haven't talked to in 10 years and see they face a health issue, then next day , out of nowhere, you see them on the street and they say they do face that health issue.

We may be using the same terms and using different descriptions here. It's very hard for me to explain. For me, when one rests in awareness, I mean resting in the 5 sense organs, but being undifferentiated so it remains whole. It is effortless to exists and rest in this nature and is what I believe the main practice of the cutting through our trekcho. We see through the fiction of the mind but still see the information provided by the 5 sense organs are being real. I believe the Buddha went beyond the 5 sense organs and saw them as Maya, illusion. The body and all that you are experiencing right now is not real. You are dreaming and don't realise you are dreaming. Your body is just a dream body, your thoughts are made up of dream language and the food and drink you consume including the taste is all part of the dream. In my opinion, seeing through the illusion of the 5 sense organs is what is seen in the leep over teachings of Togal.

There are a lot of folks who swear by "pure awareness" as the essential element of sentient being. Something like that. I think of Nisargadatta: My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! ("I Am That", Chapter 75, p. 375) 'You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of 'I am'. It is without words, just pure beingness. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself. (Gaitonde, Mohan (2017). Self - Love: The Original Dream (Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Direct Pointers to Reality). Mumbai: Zen Publications. ISBN 978-9385902833) Or Dogen: Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back. (Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, trans. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, pg 176) I used to write about the location of awareness, but a friend of mine felt that awareness is all encompassing, throughout the universe. Because of him, I switched to writing about the placement of attention, but there's a trick (isn't there always!)--the placement of attention out of necessity in the movement of breath, with the activity of the body following entirely from the location of awareness, such as occurs in the moment before falling asleep. As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience, as occasion demands--that's enough.

The explanation I was given years ago - and dimly remembered was this. Justice and Mercy. There are two conditions one in which energy is limited and in short supply. In this case everything is geared to assessing what is absolutely necessary to complete the task. An assessment - an analysis of the situation which judges harshly exactly what is required and what is to be rejected. How much energy and was resources, tools and such are needed to do the job. This is Justice. It Just Is. So to speak. The other condition is where energy is abundant - it overflows - is radiant - in this condition we imagine, dream, create and most importantly allow. We are compassionate and lenient. Mercy - which is not strained but dropeth like a gentle rain ... and so on. This is sun-like. The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown: His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much To mitigate the justice of thy plea; Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

I have had dreams of being out of the body and flying. I do not know if they were real or just childhood fantasies. Was, .. Is there a way to tell the difference between dreams and the real out of the body experiences? Do I need to look at my hands? Or do I have to see something in real life to prove the dream was real? As far as I know, this self is of this body. Cut away an arm and leg and the mind is diminished because the mind no longer controls these limbs. Feed the body alcohol or drugs and the mind travels to areas where control is lost. The body is influenced by the chemicals that were ingested. It all points to body and mind are linked. It seems when I die then all that will be left are the strings of karma created by this mind and self. Never know when it will return. It isn't like flowers in the spring time. An apple seed is planted and begins to grow. When and what sweetness the fruit comes, that is unknown to me. I wish I could say i can rest as awareness and let all else arise and fall away.

My first recollectible memory of this life was an out of body experience induced by an intense dream. It indelibly imbued the gift of vajra knowing that my essential nature is awareness. The body, manifests as a semi-persistent experience, which arises within a field of awareness. The mind... another aspect of semi-persistence, though vastly more changeable and vacillatory moment to moment than the body, also arises and persists only within a field of awarneness. Body is not the I am. Mind is not. I am. Awareness is... all else rises and falls away within this. To rest as awareness is to open the door to true nature in this one's experience.

Physical - I am the body, when the body dies I die. Mental - I am not just my body, but I am my thoughts. I am the thinker and the sum of my beliefs make me who I am. When the body dies my mind lives on. Causal - I am undifferentiated awareness. I see thoughts arising within the space of awareness. Awareness will be there when thoughts cease. I effortlessly exist. I AM. Unknown - I am the unknowable. The totality of experience is a changing illusion, including the 5 senses. Like the projection in a dream, the dreamer is dreaming the projection. The dreamscape itself is devoid of the dreamer. Like playing a video game, the character in the video game is not the same as the player playing the video game character, who is completely outside the video game world.

Hey @idiot_stimpy, thanks for your message! Yes, the idea about tummo is similar to the idea of lower dan tien in qigong and daoism. The idea is that the bigger and stronger you build your tummo fire or lower dan tien, the better your physical health will be. Furthermore, the bigger you build it, the more it opens the other channels and dan tiens (chakras in buddhism of course). If your lower dan tien or tummo fire is at maximum level, everything else on the spiritual path will be quite easy, no matter if it's opening chakras and dan tiens, mastering dream or sleep yoga, bardo yoga, healing yourself or others, acheiving deep meditation etc. This is because all these skills are dependent on chakras and channels (or dan tiens, meridians and 5 organ qi in qigong). Just take meditation as an example: when your middle channel is open (sushumna or chong mai) deep meditation is effortless. You can feel it physically, as both your nostrils will open completely (normally one nostril is more open, and the other is more closed). Then you feel incredibly refreshed and energized, very harmonious, and your senses effortlessly go inwards. A big tummo fire or strong lower dan tien will automatically open and unblock your central channel. So if you've mastered tummo, and you want to meditate, it will be very easy, as your central channel is open. Similarly dream yoga is dependent on the throat chakra, sleep yoga is dependent on the heart chakra, sex yoga is dependent on the navel chakra and sexual chakra. That's why Tummo is the base of many practices, just like lower dan tien is in qigong.

... so it IS when looked at properly. Deep in meditation the world IS a flickering phantom world of ephemeral moments. Time, space, and self drop away and there is just being. This is an experience anyone can have, though many will say it is just a "state". In some branch of Advaita Vedanta or another (I forget which) they consider the stack of consciousness inverted to the way we commonly think of it: Waking reality is the most "asleep", the dreaming world more accurate, where time, space and self are wiggly, and deep sleep and the blackness of empty being-ness as most like the enlightened mind. Ever notice how our waking stories about our dreams have to be altered to fit into a narrative, as they don't really follow our typical lines of causation? In a dream you can be in one location one moment, and then walk into a completely different place all of a sudden. You can see the dream from your "self" perspective, or suddenly from the perspective of another "character". When you try to read something in a dream, it may be nonsense, or may be different if you try to read it again, or even have numbers and letters that change constantly. I have noticed all of these things and more when I am not trying to bend the contents of a dream into a narrative. All of the typical rules go out the window. I have found that one can be "enlightened" (awake to the non-dual nature of reality) in both the waking world AND deep sleep, but it is somehow possibly easier in sleep where the rules already don't make complete sense. In the waking world we have a tendency to explain away the odd moments of life, missing time in the car, strange figures we see out of the corner of our eyes, missing doorways, stairwells, things we decide we "misremember". If we get out of the habit of explaining away our experience or constructing stories about what "must have" happened, and just accept that being present with reality is weird, we open a door onto much more. It is absolutely good to hold our ideas about reality lightly, rather than grasping for surety.

Powerful observations stimpy. The dream like quality of awareness in the aggregates of life has been with me since earliest childhood. My first conscious memory in this life was a dream so intense, that then led to an out of body experience. It forever imbued in me the dream like state of awareness as it interacts with the five aggregates and the indelible fact that my body is not the source of awareness... rather the body arises within awareness. Awareness is what is... all else arises and shifts within this... The nature of my experience in this waking life seems inextricably linked to the projections of mind, the conditioning and assumptions derived from conditioning. It is all so ephemeral, even the shared dream of waking life. One small insight can utterly transform my experience and interpretation of all that i encounter in 'the real world'. And my experiences in the dreamscapes have been at least equal to my awareness experiences in waking life in their ability to inform me about my own true nature due to how i react to stimuli and what this reveals about my nature. Due to this I have innately been predisposed to see the natural connection between the sleeping dream state and the waking dream that we all share as being layers of one overarching process, not seperate states. Even the manner in which we 'come online' in waking life is similar to how I become aware in the dream state. When i become lucid in dreams... the dream is ongoing, having already begun and i find myself in the midst of a process and then become aware of it. Similarly, the first few years of life are foggy but at some point in early childhood, our lucid awareness 'comes online' so to speak and we begin to form memory and the ability to have what we experience through awareness to inform and imprint upon us. The manner in which i awakened into reality mirrors exactly the manner in which i become lucid in the dream state nightly. Dzogchen was an immediate draw due to its deep, intimate exploration of the waking and sleep states of consciousness. The work of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in particular in his book Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, has been a potent companion to my lucid dream work over the years. If you're not familiar, there is a fantastic film called Waking Life, that explores the dream like nature of waking and sleeping life. My son and i revisit it once a year or so and it never ceases to inspire some potent conversations and exploration. Thanks for sharing mate... this topic is near to my core.

When we think of both dream and supposed waking life, we think they are completely different. However they are different in stability but in actuality they are quite similar. I think analysing dream reality and uncovering it's rules helps us better understand waking reality. Those could say that waking reality is also dream reality just more stable. When we dream our minds projects a reality. Our 5 senses still work, we have a dream body. In most cases when we dream we treat the dream as real and experience suffering due to attachment as similar in waking reality. What's interesting is within a dream, when we come to the realisation we are just dreaming and all experience is unreal/illusion, our attachment to our situation is greatly reduced including our suffering. Looking into Dzogchen togal recently I couldn't help but question the current waking reality we exist in. Maybe just like in a dream, our bodies and dream is just a projection, in waking reality maybe it is no different. We are experiencing projections of our own mind, our body and senses are also projections. Maybe reality like a dream will have less of a hold on us if we start to believe it might not be as real as it seems.

My first experience/conscious memory of this life was a dream that led to an out of body experience. I was three. I had no notion of what dreams or death was, nor even really my body or identity yet. I was just an awareness exploring life. It instilled in me the unshakable vajra experience that awareness is not body dependent, nor body originated or centered. It was a gift beyond anything I could envision or seek intentionally then or now. Before I had even a concept of body death, I had the indelible experience that the body is not the center of awareness or of life itself. In my late 40's I died on several occasions a few years apart. Two I have no active recall of, but returned in an enduring and intently blissful state of gratitude that abided for months. The other occasion resulted in two encounters of which there are memories and again a blissful abiding state of enduring devotional gratitude that returns unbidden on occasion since then...

Baldur, son of Odin, was the most beloved of the gods. He is sometimes reffered to as the norse Jesus. He is beauty personified, and also asscociated with easter. The death of Baldur is one of the more famous stories of the Eddas. Baldur had a dream about his death, and when Odin and Freya (his parrents), got to know about this, traveled far and wide and asked every stone, plant, river, animal and an all other beings to promise not to harm him. They all agreed. As Baldr now had become immortal, the gods made a game out of throwing things at him. Loki (trickster and a jotun, but never the less a god) disguised himself, as tricksters do, and asked Freya: did everything promise not to harm him? To witch she responded yes, everything but the mistletoe, but why worry about something so small and insignificant? Loki, still in disguise, approached the blind god Hothr and gave him an arrow with the tip of a mistletoe, and invited him to join the game. The blind god fired his bow, and Baldr died. All beings where in great distress, because they knew that the death marked the (beginning) of the end, ragnarrok. Fimbulvinter (the great winter, lasting for three seasons) set in. The sun disappears, laws and morals falls away. The struggle of survival. Men starve, brothers fight brothers. The forces of utgard march against the Asgard, and mankind joins the battle as well. The midgard serpent and Thor fights each other, leaving both dead. Fenrir swallows Odin and his men, the einherjar (those who died in battle and went to valhalla). All giants, gods and men die in this battle. The world is submerged in water. Baldr, now in the underworld ruled by Lokis daughter Hel, promised to realise him on the condition that the whole world. Lif and Lifthrasir, destined to survive Ragnarrok, ventured out in time and went on to populate the earth. They worshipped Balder as their main god. Now, there are various accounts, a lot of unknown elements and also errors in my retteling of it, but i think its pretty cool. The brave god of beauty, associated with spring, dies on the hands of a blind men, tricked by a Loki and killed by an overlooked/insignificant plant. When the god of easter dies, the long winter sets in, and all hell breaks loose. The world cries, hell sets loose and both the forces of evil and good is killed. Two humans remain, life, and their main deity is the god of beauty and spring himself... And, lastly, there is a deity that we know almost nothing about. We know that he is the son of Odin, will avenge his father and kill Fenrir, the wolf. Fenrir is both the son of Loki, and Loki is at times called Fenris Fenrir. Fenrir (Old Norse 'fen-dweller')[3] or Fenrisúlfr (Old Norse "Fenrir's wolf", often translated "Fenris-wolf"), kind of poetic, no?

At the extremes most analogies break down, but in everyday life its good to stretch the mind. I'll do stretches of Life as Dream, ie see dreams as important signals of of synchronicity and life as more dreamlike..symbolic if you will. That being said it I don't assume the car heading towards me will vanish magically. Life as Dream is a hard metaphor to live with long term, for me. Similarly the concept of No good/No evil breaks down in extremes, we generally aren't living there. The world is more tic toc mundane and stretching our mind to be less judgemental, less desire is a welcome state. The movie Pleasantville had its hero describe the concept well, at the end of his 'enlightenment' journey to his mother who complains to him 'It's not supposed to be this way" and David replies back "It's not supposed to be anything. Hold still." (Funny checking on the quote I didn't remember the Hold Still part.) Big part of our struggle in life is that damnable 'It's not supposed to be this way'. While its good to call shit, shit, we over do it, and label, judge and compare too much, to our detriment. It's made us anxious, fearful and neurotic. To take a break from that mindset is imo a good thing and not easy. We can turn to Tao/zen/meditation/right thinking or Drugs/stuff/distraction. I generally flip a coin.

@Nungali Strange indeed. But dream-weavers are liars. In the 8th grade, I had a dream about America. In the morning, when I came to school, a boy in my class told me he had a dream about me in America, and apparently some relative I had there left me an inheritance of $76 million. I still remember that number, and am still waiting...

Here is a strange thing .... three girls all having the same dream . GFs twin daughters and their friend (having a sleep over ) . They wake up freaked out that they where on the front lawn of the house , they went outside because there was a 'witch' out there , a nasty one . They surrounded her and where about to kill her but then they woke up . Curious . We all know who it is , its the very weird neighbor , who has been mounting psychic and other 'attacks' all over the place ( for some time it appears, as her past history comes to light . ) I had a weird situation with her 2 weeks back : I am siting inside talking to a friend and he is facing me and observing out the window behind me ; " There are people in your back yard !" WTF ? I go out but they are walking away to the driveway ; " Excuse me.... hello ..... do you want something ? " They appeared to be huddled over something one held in her hands . It was strange woman with another woman , a bearded woman, I had never seen before . She starts with an introduction and quickly goes into a confused babble , apology , an 'asking for forgiveness', various bodily contortions and attempted yoga positions , getting on the ground, standing up , revealing parts of her anatomy ( with no underwear ... ugh ! ) as she is 'dressed' in her usual collection of scarfs and sarongs . 90% of her talk is new age cosmic babble speech ; " I feel in my heart center a oneness and desire to communicate with unbound less love from my heart chi .... " ( which is typical language from her ..... then she goes on to do underhanded shit ) ... ie. extremely passive / aggressive ' attempted manipulator . After telling them they had to leave a few times , the bearded lady tried to take hold of my arm , I evaded ... she didnt persist , she came very close to getting some aikido lessons - but I preferred the evasion with no contact at all method . Wow - if I had gone and done that to her place, or any other woman's place . Anyway they left but then bearded lady came back with a 'present' from the other one .. a present ? "peace offering " - nope, I am not gonna touch it . Then she offered me her own 'present' .. no, go away . She asked me again explaining that she had no idea what got sprung on her was going to happen ; " I was asked if I wanted to go with her to meet you , I have never had an introduction to anyone like that before and I hope I never do again . " So I shielded more and took the 'present ' , she left , ( a small little hand made 'dolly')... what the fuck would I want with a little dolly ??? I put it on my fuchsite slab, under the restraining hands of my Anpu statue . It was deemed 'innocuous' with the smiling comment ; " Nice of them to supply a voodoo doll for you . " But since I dont do that shit, I put dolly in a little reed boat and floated her off down the river towards the Great Sea . Due to other shit she has done there is a 'sit down' scheduled meeting with her and a couple of others this week , my GF ( who has had years long issues with her and now they have ended up neighbors ( .... great ! ) has asked me to come along as her 'energy guardian ' . This should be 'interesting' .... at least . What will the 'evil witch' do when cornered and exposed ? ( Her 'bestie' will be there too as a support person for her , but this woman has also confided in me that her friend is 'getting a bit too much' and has started trying to fuck her over as well ... when all the time she sprouts these love and light slogans .) But three girls having the same dream ??? Even to me and my experience ... that's a 'strange thing ' .