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Anyone that has hiked, climbed or backpacked in the wilderness must have a dream hike destination. Here is my first one. Mt. Whitney on the John Muir trail. I have camped out next to the glacial end moraine below Whitney (above Lone Pine).

Maybe you have experiences with weird sleep states and can share your stories or give some insight. Every few months I have a peculiar sleep-related experience. Interestingly, if I really intend to let energy act freely in the head, I get results, albeit often scary. I'm unsure whether it's a necessary fear-overcoming part of my journey or something less useful. I had dreams. Not really nightmares, just some minor issue with a being pestering me, struggling a little, then regular dream scenes that didn't make too much sense, just some mixed stuff. Eventually I woke up and I don't remember exactly in what kind of state I was, but I felt compelled to turn the light on. Then with the light on and my eyes open, I lay in bed, and suddenly I noticed how insanely tired I felt. Despite eyes open and lights on, I was really struggling to not fall asleep again, and for some reason I did try to avoid that. I guess my controlling mind wasn't at all comfortable with consciously witnessing the process of falling asleep. It was clear to me that I needed to get out of bed and move if I wanted to avoid falling asleep like that, but when I had formed that thought, I already was in a weird state where I saw my room with the lights on just like a moment before, but it FELT like non-lucid dreaming. Just as if someone flipped a switch that said "dream consciousness". That moment felt a bit like endless loop logic, because afterwards I thought I had been dreaming that I tried to wake up. (Don't try to follow that line of logic, haha.) After some reflecting... I might have fallen asleep with my eyes open for a few seconds. Basically, because I was so extremely tired (no idea why) and it felt like something was pulling me back into the sleep state, I couldn't avoid falling asleep, but I could keep my eyes open, because I was more conscious than what would be normal. I would exclude that I had been disturbed in a vulnerable dream state, because my waking up felt natural and there were no noises.

Man, the fruit makes me want to go to nature maybe even back to the dawn of time but in the modern world I will stay dodging the materialism, trash and grime Walking around in the tropical wilderness picking ripe fruits to eat everyday what a romanticnotion, but how ideal is it, no way, can’t be done some say Now I see the world as an illusion just like in The Matrix the movie everything I thought was natural is fake even down to a simply smoothie My mind is changing I want to get away from my modern culture I don’t want to study business so I can learn to swindle people like a vulture I want to walk in the sand enjoying the sun and perfect health not stressing out about how broke I am and how I am not building mega wealth So what do I do, do I relocate and go somewhere hot or do I stay here in this concrete jungle, this beautifully diverse melting potI just don’t know, I’m broke and as it is I’m just getting by would I survive in the tropics, hey, I will never know if I don’t try It sure is a tempting, romantic, idealistic thought though will it ever happen, hey, you know it just might, I guess I’ll never know I’ll just continue to dream of tropical trees, fruits and the sun in the sky and sort out later all the when’s, how’s, maybe’s, what for’s and why.

Anyone know any monk or person in isolation, for a long period of time, who has been recording his/her dreams? One can only imagine how strange their dreams would get after a long period of isolation. I wonder how much it would affect their dream reality. Wether it would get more realistic or perhaps strange and weird? It seems that the western people, with our way of life, we have the strangest dreams of all, simply because there is so little structure in this multicultural of this society. It seems that people have chosen to let go of their roots and fly above the forrest, looking in confusion at all the diffrent kinds of trees that have been growing. Everyone has his own personal symbology, yet we can see the powerful relics and left overs of the ancient cultures and their symbology, of which some still succeed to find their way into our subconscious mind. Though, the power of dreams are still not drained. The symbology has just become fragmented or transformed, as to making it hard for people to even relate to one and another in a unified way or form a culture together. Where I ask people who live more isolated and seem "dumb" from the outside, they can sometimes share incredibly deep dreams that deal with core issues of the conscious and subconscious mind. Their dreams can also be very rich and filled with variety of people who act in unique ways and each and every one of them reflect the dreamer in a powerful way. Some of these people have so much time on their hands that they actually automaticly become aware of whats going on in their subconscious mind simply when they are bored. Without any effort at meditation or calming their mind. Which reminds me... Muslims, Jews and Taoists relate to eachother in the fact that they are encouraged very much to meditate in some ways during their day time experience. Where Muslim does it on the ground, a jew in his mind, a Taoist in his body. We all have placed an emphasis on having a quick break from this reality to become more aware of all the subconscious events that are occuring. Where people who have let go of those ancient traditions only have the same level of subconscious awareness when their environment allows them. So anyone recall having heard a dream of a person who has had that dream during a long period of isolation? Perhaps emprisoned, on a deserted island, or perhaps even born in isolation. I wonder if we can still relate to the dreams of an isolated person in any way. I believe that dreams are soul experiences that our brains can only interpret by relating all the meaningless interpreted and altered information links together in a unified way. Its like a sneak peak at the unknown, yet, what you see is totally bend around, because your mind is not capable of receiving the information in an unfiltered and unaltered way. So my last question, what do enlightened beings dream about? I assume they are lucid all the time? So a more appropriate phrasing would perhaps be, "what do enlightened people choose to dream about?"

So it seems that lately I've been pretty active in the occult scene in my dreams. Latest, I dreamt I broke two curses that different people had placed on me. The dream narrator also told me I'd been through the kundalini twice. There were a bunch of symbolic objects, a heavily underlined book that looked like a paperback 'how to' of curse breaking which I'd definitely buy if I could recall the title :-) and the realization that my mother is actually a real witch. She was one of the people who had placed a curse. The big curse. The other person had just put a little one on me and they know who they are (apparently) and not to do it again or I'll use a bunch of mirrors on them:-) I also dreamt I'd left my luggage in a different city, but that part I get. Anyone want to take a stab at analysis?

I managed to recall a dream while it was fresh in my mind. I was in a house where I slept. Went to the bathroom to piss. Like always, I was aware, more then usual. I could not seperate one thing around me from this reality. So trying to see how this reality is fake, I fail. Thus, trying to see how the dream is fake I fail aswell. Anyone has a better way of distinguishing realities? Maybe using a firestone to reflect the dream, or a very complex symbol that is hard to reproduce in the dreamworld? I tried to read a word in a dream. Rereading it, the word remain exactly the same. Does this mean my dreams get better at conveying words over time? Would reading a sentence also remain the same in a dream when you have read it 500 time in your waking hours? Or do sentences work all the time?

Nero's Guests - Sainath journalist exposes the fraud of Indian "development" as welfare for the rich which has caused a mass death ritual sacrifice -- meanwhile India exports grain at a cheaper price for European cows than sold for the domestic market.

After a relatively dream-free 40ish years, I'm suddenly getting quite a few. Risking boring the hell out of everyone, I'd like to report them & related non-events. I remembered a certain taobum with a relevant nickname had checked my profile & felt a strange urge to contact him. I waited a few days and pm'd him. It turns out he'd had a dream of being outside a house, with a vague impression of a piano. There's a piano in my living room. So far, so inconclusive. Then he reported a dream about a frog: This had some significance to me at the time: Perhaps I also need to 'lose my venom' to rejuvenate. And then: My interpretation: the present situation presents great risks. But I am not a specific target and can avoid them by confining their possible angles of approach, and staying vigilant. I must spend this time preparing myself. The world will eventually become safer, but will remain basically insane. The will offer gifts to tempt me. They will be exaggerated, commercial, and tawdry - but ultimately harmless. I had a couple more fragmentary ones this morning. The gist of one was to be nicer to my Dad, but I've forgotten the details already.

Idea from another thread and squash it if it's daft. A dream journalling thread for sleeping (qiGong and the like) cultivators. Any comments?

nevermind, as soon as I wrote it I understood it.

OK, I decided I should share this really weird dream I had recently. I was chilling and doing my thing when suddenly a huge dog-sized rat appeared. It was ugly and I didn't like it. I was not in a panic but I had a slight fear of it. I felt it was sneaky and dirty. So at first I decided to ignore it and this rat was just hanging out and annoying me by not removing itself from my experience. Then I tried to throw it away. I would pick it up and throw it as far away as possible. Annoyingly it would come back again and sort of thumb its nose at me, kind of like a rat's version of "fuck you" in my direction. Next thing I tried to do was throw it over a balcony. As soon as I thought this way, I was on some balcony with the rat. I would throw the rat overboard and it would hover in the air instead of falling to its death down below. Now I was getting really annoyed. I'll be honest -- I'm usually the only one with magical powers in my dreams and this rat was pissing me off by not falling down. Then I decided I had to shoot it with a gun. As soon as I thought this, a gun materialized in my hand. And here's the really weird and cool thing. I tried to aim at the rat, and my hand would refuse to follow my intent! I've never seen anything like it! I mean, I know myself. I know I am aiming straight at the rat but my hand is like 5 or 10 degrees to the right. I tried to move my hand left to correct for this aberration, and my hand would just jump over to the left of the rat. So no matter what I did my hand refused to follow my intent and I couldn't take a straight aim at the rat. So this was really interesting. I could see how my intent was generally manifesting. But somehow it was being modified by my subconscious mind. I feel like that's the main message of the dream. It's trying to tell me something about how intent works, because that last experience was one of the most stupendous ones I've ever had. Also, I had quite a bit of garlic right before that dream happened and I thought it's possible this rat was some kind of garlic spirit trying to teach me something. I'm trying to understand the nature of intent right now, so this dream really puzzled me. I feel like I should be able to understand what happened there when I couldn't aim at the rat, but I don't understand it. That's disappointing.

http://thetaobums.co...kes-limitation/

Wondering whether any bums have experience in dream yoga or sleeping qigong? I did dream yoga a couple of weeks as per "Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep". I managed to remember almost all of my dreams and when I think back now I can see my nighttime activities somehow made everything feel more connected. However I couldn't manage to get into a lucid dream, probably because my awareness without the monkey mind chatting is still too weak. Also, I didn't get enough sleep which was tiring overall. What are your experiences? Also, have you tried to fall asleep in a qigong state and maybe getting to a lucid dream? This thread was originally started in the Training Goals thread.

Couple of weeks ago, I picked up the pace of my practice by adding some of Bruce Frantzis water based methods. Namely I added zhuang zhang(basic wuji pose) for about 10 minutes and the spinal stretch x3. I do take plenty of breaks, I usually skip a day, sometimes two days in-between practice. My entire practice is about 20 minutes. frankly I don't quite understand why I have such exterme sensitivity to ANY form of practice? One issue that jumped up in high grear about a week ago is a big change in my dream state. I am very aware of my dreams at night, I am always in them. They unfold like a movie with me being in it. At times I have trouble coming out of the dream. Last night I slept for about 12 hours.(I am also fighting a cold, which my body seems to heal) When i do wake up I am quite restful, but the drama that unfolds everynight is starting to become troublesome and disruptive. I feel like I am taken through a ringer everynight your thoughts/ideas are greatly appreciated.

Although most religions view wet dream as unclean or even evil ,they all view it as something insignificant and never give it any important place in their religion . It is only in Taoist alchemy that its importance is identified. As we all know , the cornerstone of Taoist cultivation is qi; yet without having accumulated certain jing ( essence), the refinement of jing into high quality qi is unlikely . However, even a very self-disciplined guy who can behave himself well in daytime, he can't get rid of nocturnal releases in midnight once or twice a month . Because of this , the accumulation of essence in his body seems unlikely , and the upgrading of the quality of his qi is also repeatedly interrupted, seems hopeless. In fact, not all nocturnal release are accompanied by wet dream, but most of them do. From Taoist point of view, wet dream is just a not- yet- purified qi grasping our shen (" spirit") as a means to attain its goal . And, viewing it in a much bigger framework , as an individual had taken a lump of qi from the universe so as to be born and living as an individual , the universe is eager to take it back secretly (from his dream ).So , there is always some flow of qi , some balance between them ; the universe is never in a status of lack of qi .. so somehow immortality is unlikely to come true in any individual case.. Although Western people seem never pay attention to the time that wet dream happen , TCM and Taoism do notice it and carefully study it . They discover that the time most nocturnal release happen is when yin and yang of the day intercourse ...Qi in our body just responds to that much bigger stream of intercourse and sadly be manipulated to do its job.

I was on a motorway the details were fuzzy but it seemed like me and other people I knew/friends/past accquaintences were riding vehicles of some sort on the motorway but everything was open, then i realise i could skate on the motorway without any shoes, so I started going very fast like I was skiing, started getting scared I was going so fast wondering if stopping would be dangerous or how to stop, looking at friends for guidance, then i wondered if I should stop like skiiers stop or go on the grass. anyhow I noticed like some spiral/bagua trigram like a black background with flashing white lights resembling a trigram like in the I ching, I vaguely remember a thought about lucid dreaming/astral projecting so I decided to stare at the light then my body started tensing feeling electrified but I felt scared like I could leave my body/die so I decided to stop. One interesting epiphany I had though is that the subconscious mind heals on a subconscious level so intefering with the conscious is not always neccessary.

Greetings everyone. Recently I had a really vivid dream and wondered what it meant in regards to my study and practice. I have read only a little Huayen related literature, but what little I have read has left me absolutely gobsmacked by the sheer brilliance of this Way. I have a longing to read the Avatamsaka sutra but the large price tag of the book has stopped me from buying it. However, I have made a vow that sometime soon I would find a way to purchase this book. Now to my dream.... I found myself in an abandoned cave/temple complex in China. It was in ruins, and was damp, with moss covered rocks strewn all about. There was a large statue of the Buddha, but his head had somehow fallen from the body and it (the head) was lying sideways in the centre of the room. At the other end of the room was a stone plinth with some large leatherbound books on top of it. There were about a dozen books, all beautifully encased in black leather with the word "Avatamsaka'' embossed in gold on the front of each volume. I opened the book on top of the pile to find the most beautifully written sutra in red ink on thick moleskin paper. There was also a page by page commentary of the sutra. All of this was written in English. It's hard to describe, but I felt as I was reading, I immediately understood everything instantly. Then I woke up..... It was an extremely vivid dream. I actually thought I was there. I have been trying to understand the significance of it all. I really just don't know. Can dreams point us in the right direction and keep us from straying from the path ?

"And dreams themselves are merely the dreams of dreams" Segismundo - Life is a Dream

Does anyone have any experience with this book? It was a kind of strange sequence of events that led me to purchase this book (losing my wallet, deciding to spend all of my gift card money on my kindle account, finding this book through various searches and recommendations). So far I have been fascinated with how direct, clear, and helpful the theory is. The author is open about how this practice is a journey, and it is not simply philosophy and exercises in this book, but a way of life. I never really had an understanding of karma before starting this book, but now I have been experiencing the last few days with this knowledge that every action i take will produce some kind of karmic seed, that is, if my actions involve any kind of grasping or aversion. Truly brilliant, I have had dreams the past three nights and journaled them as soon as I got up, (product placement) after I took a shot of E3LIVE, of course. Last night I healed a friend using a spring forest qigong technique I saw in a youtube video...i think I shall practice that today. Anyway, tell me about your experiences!!

Last night I had a very interesting dream that I want to share with you. I was in the underground with some people that I don't know very well. We prepared for a an energy transmission, we sat quietly and waited for Osho doing his transmission. He did it and he healed my kidney. It was really a nice feeling. I woke up and I was quite surprised. Actually I'm not an Osho-fan, I know who he was but I never did his meditations. I'm not into energy transmissions too but I do regulary qigong. Moreover I don't have any big problem at my kidneys (as far as I know...); anyway I'm sometimes stressed because of working or studying; I don't have a girlfriend and I'm not really emotionally balanced; I do kung fu, strength training and qigong in order to balance. I got this dream as a gift. Comments are welcome.

What is the goal of lucid dreaming? Which technique or methods do you use and recommend? Are there different stages? Pitfalls? ... Everyone who would like to share his/her experience is welcome... Jox,

Recently there was some good discussion on OBE and astral travel, and Seth posted about very good free ebook at obe4u.com with good methods. I found a really good article by a Tibetan teacher which talks about dream yoga, the purpose, how the dream state is very effective for dealing with psychological problems and spiritual practice, the steps or stages of dream yoga, and the eventual goal. I think everyone will find this not only interesting but fruitful, whether Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever. http://www.spiritwatch.ca/abuddhis.htm A Buddhist Perspective on Lucid Dreaming excerpt:

I had once read about dream yogha. It was too complex. Rinpoche or something. I think I still got the book somewhere in pc if anyone recommends it. I'm not sure if anyone here is experienced with this? I mean we sleep so long in our lives, why not become totally conscious during our sleep aswell? So much to learn and experienced there, so much to explore. The truth lies within, all the time, I believe. That is why conscious sleeping is very important to me. I have found many techniques that help get little results. Especially all the advice out there about lucid dreaming on the internet. I'm not content with these. I just want much bigger results and better progress. Not limited by the limitations of science regarding the leaving your body with your consciousness experiences. Any source of information of real experienced conscious sleeping or dreaming teachers?