Why do we have such a hard time remembering our "dreams"? Shall we put effort into remembering? What benefit?

[4bsolute]

Dear Ones,

 

it happened again. I was in a very vivid dream and I wake up, I try to remember everything went blank. From one second to another. How come? I dont have Altzheimer so I demand to be able to remember them.

 

Maybe you are also already aware of the fact that what we call our "dreams" is basicly just our bodily consciousness disconnecting from our body and being in one of our other bodies. For many this is the astral body. For few this goes even more deeper.

 

You can put effort into consciously falling asleep. This requires you to have an insane focus and from what I have read not many people can do this. Regardless it is truely something special which I personally want to achieve in the near future. But this requires some excess amount of energy in our system. Meaning one has to have a propper lifestyle of cultivating energy and not blowing it away during the day, falling asleep totally tired and exhausted. Light food in the evening and early nights are best for doing so.

 

Now, whenever I can I also put effort into remembering what happened during my body fell asleep. But like written in the first line this does not (yet) happen very often and I get a little frustrated. The curiosity of understanding this part of our reality is so strong that it lets me quickly get over my lack of rememberance.

 

Shall we put effort into remembering our "dreams"? If so, why? What benefit is there? And why do we have in general such a hard time remembering what happened? Does this happen purposely or is this yet another lazy attitude what we had mastered in our childhood?

 

Curious, let me know what I obviously dont know.

 

All the best!

[Seth Ananda]

Its a sign of modern disconnection from ourselves, or deeper parts of ourselves at least.

 

Anthropologists around the world have noted how vivid many tribal peoples dream lives actually are, where a big deal is made out of dreams and their messages.

 

For most of us though dreams are 'unimportant', so we may have cycles of some dream activity followed by quiet, or seemingly none at all.

 

Fortunately this is fairly easy to correct. Keep a dream diary, and even if you don't have one you remember, still write that down. Start conversations in the morning based on last night dreams and so on...

 

All this tells your deeper being/unconscious that you are starting to value dreams and you will thus start to remember them more.

 

 

Other alternatives would be taking dreaming herbs, or experimenting with something like ritual magick or shamanism.

Its strange but interacting with 'archetypal' energies and their various symbolic depictions is extremely activating to the unconscious mind, and will start to trigger all kinds of strange night events...

 

Seth.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Seth Ananda

[Dagon]

For me, dreams reveal my weaknesses. How I acti in my dreams is becoming as important to me as I act in life.

 

Dreams can put you into circumstances that would be rare in life, and prepare me if the rare occasion does come, it is a good exercise in self control for me as well.

[BaguaKicksAss]

I find that writing them down really helps. Not at first, but after a couple of weeks of it the recall gets a lot better, then after a few months the dreams get good enough you start to get teaching dreams, as well as more and more lucid dreams. I have found this to be the case with many many people.

 

Also I have noticed that taking 1000mg of GABA really helps makes the dreams more vivid and eventually lucid. This also worked with 4/5th of my sample group (well OK my sample group was only 5 people, but anyways lol).

[skydog]

http://thetaobums.com/topic/31630-dream/#entry476595

[thelerner]

At the highest level I've heard the real goal is deep dreamless (yet conscious) rejuvenating sleep.

 

Yet I assume we're pretty far from highest level. Sleep work can help us, figure out inner thoughts, demons and desires. There is the goal of lucidity and beyond that astral travel and connecting to some deep forces all the way to the nature of death. Seems worthwhile to me and step number one is remembering your dream.

 

Personally dream work tends to make my insomnia worse so usually after a few weeks I tend to give it up so I can sleep better. I've found and some research has backed me up that the last 90 minute REM cycle tends to be the most vivid. Waking up 90 or 100 minutes early, walk a bit, go to washroom, set your mind to remember your next dream and have a goal, tends to work best. For me commands and hypnotic instructions done earlier don't have nearly the same power.

 

I also had a method I called retell to remember. Before opening my eyes instead of trying to remember the dream, I'd 'retell' it mentally to myself, as if I was telling a story to a third person. My theory being this downloads the dream from precarious short term memory into long term. Then write out the dream on a nearby pad of paper, tittle first.

 

<edit> lots and lots of 'serial' dreams last night. Serial meaning after waking up you return to the same dream. As someone said, just talking about dreams, general awareness of them, brings them out with greater intensity.

Edited September 11, 2013 by thelerner

[RongzomFan]

--

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[Jeff]

Dream yoga is arguably the highest Buddhist practice.

 

Namkhai Norbu accomplishes most of his practice using dream yoga as a platform.

 

Why would it be the highest practice? I would think that at Norbu's level, the normal daily state would be the same as dream level (or meditation).

[JustBHappy]

If your not resting in awareness in the waking bardo then there's not much chance of doing it in the bardo of sleep and remembering afterwards.

Forget about dreams and dreaming. Work on your waking state, your daily practice. Once this is strong, the dream practice comes naturally and effortlessly. Not only will you have recall, but you will start to become aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming which will start to open up a whole new world of practice and exploration.

[xor]

I find it easy to remember dreams if I have an interest in them. One sure way to remember a dream or two a night for me is to read up on lucid dreaming.

[RongzomFan]

-----

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[RongzomFan]

---

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[Tibetan_Ice]

Dream yoga is arguably the highest Buddhist practice.

 

Namkhai Norbu accomplishes most of his practice using dream yoga as a platform.

...

He is too busy during the day teaching people, so he does most of his practice at night.

 

 

Hey Alwaysoff,

Why would Namkhai Norbu, one of the greatest living master of Dzogchen, have to practice anything?

Edited September 11, 2013 by Tibetan_Ice

[RongzomFan]

--

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[Tibetan_Ice]

Christian_Ice,

 

What does that even mean?

 

Why wouldn't he have to practice?

 

You are indeed supposed to view the guru as a dharmakaya Buddha.

 

But as far as I know, ChNN is not your guru.

 

Alwaysoff..

 

This is from Jim Valby, one of ChNN's disciples:

 

http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_24_05.pdf

 

 

 

The root principle13 explains that all phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are

primordially enlightened and unified in Natural Presence. Uncreated,

primordial, all-pervasive and insubstantial Natural Presence is the source of

all teachers, teachings, disciples, times and places. Natural Presence is not

some object or experience to produce, discover or maintain. We relax with

unstructured, raw, timeless awareness in the primordially empty source,

which has infinite potential to manifest anything through sound, light and

rays. 'Sound' means the vibration and movement of emptiness. 'Light' means

that subtle energies begin to manifest through vibrating emptiness. 'Rays'

means the diversification of the empty wisdom-energies of light. All

phenomena of the animate and inanimate universe are already the wisdomenergies

of essenceless light. All phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are

direct manifestations of self-originated wisdom and are already liberated in

all-pervading, uncorrected Natural Presence. No action is necessary to

produce enlightenment. Primordial liberation does not depend upon

behavior, ideas, meditation, words or mind.

All phenomena are already unified in primordial unique, indivisible,

non-dual Natural Presence, which transcends all frames of reference and

cannot be established through words. Practitioners with capacity learn how

to relax naturally in authentic unfabricated equality, beyond negation,

affirmation, rejection, acceptance, fear, hope, struggle or practice. There is no

need to apply mudras, recite mantras, imagine visualizations, preserve

samayas, meditate deities, perform sacred activities, travel on paths, purify

obstacles, or search for wisdom. Natural Presence already abides in the bliss

of natural contemplation and transcends the dualistic diseases of meditation

practices.

 

...

 

Because followers of spiritual vehicles are attached to methods, such as

renunciation, interruption, development, purification, transformation and

accomplishment, they do not know how to relax in uncorrected Natural

Presence. Followers of Śravakayāna use the four truths to reject the selforiginated

wisdom-energies of Natural Presence. Followers of Pratyekabuddhayāna

use meditation on the twelve links of interdependent origination to

block relaxation in Natural Presence. Followers of the Bodhisattva vehicle

conceive relative and absolute truths and gather merits and wisdom by

gradually traveling on the five paths and training on the ten levels for eons.

Followers of Kriyatantra try to purify and empower all phenomena, using

mantras, mudras and visualizations related to jñānasattva and samayasattva

deities. Followers of yogatantra do not understand unchanging Natural

Presence, so they meditate deities, using the five factors of manifest

enlightenment and the four types of miracles. They cultivate contemplation

of the relative vajradhātu maṇḍala with characteristics and contemplation of

absolute emptiness without characteristics. Followers of Mahāyoga use the

three contemplations and the four aspects of approach and attainment to

transform the five aggregates and five elements into the pure maṇḍala of

enlightenment. Followers of Anuyoga do not understand how to relax in

uncorrected Natural Presence, so they assign the name 'cause' to the

dharmadhātu object, assign the name 'effect' to the self-originated wisdom

subject, emanate and re-absorb light rays, and try to obtain ordinary and

supreme siddhis. Followers of Atiyoga with high capacity realize primordial

enlightenment beyond action and achievement by relaxing in uncorrected

Natural Presence.

 

 

Therefore, a realized Dzogchen master realizes Natural Presence and there would be no need to deviate by way of any type of practice. What's with that? Why do you say he practices at night?

[RongzomFan]

--

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[Creation]

 

Therefore, a realized Dzogchen master realizes Natural Presence and there would be no need to deviate by way of any type of practice. What's with that? Why do you say he practices at night?

"So many of us in the Nyingma tradition place great emphasis on the Dzogchen tradition and its effortlessness. Often we make the mistake of just paying lip service to effortlessness, while really just being kind of lazy.

Look at someone like Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. No-one would question that his realisation was higher than anyone’s, and yet day and night he would recite prayers and mantras and do his practice. And he was inseparable from Vimalamitra! Look at the kind of effort that he put into his practice. Then there are others who just don’t do very much of that at all. They just sit there with their mouths open.

On one occasion, I asked Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, 'Is it necessary for someone with realization to recite prayers and mantras?' And he replied, 'Someone who has that kind of realisation is like space. What harm could recitation possibly do to space?' And he continued, 'To recite even a single mani mantra, or to recite the Vajra Guru mantra a few times, is only going to help. It’s not going to hurt, is it?'"

-Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche

[4bsolute]

Its a sign of modern disconnection from ourselves, or deeper parts of ourselves at least.

 

Anthropologists around the world have noted how vivid many tribal peoples dream lives actually are, where a big deal is made out of dreams and their messages.

 

For most of us though dreams are 'unimportant', so we may have cycles of some dream activity followed by quiet, or seemingly none at all.

 

Fortunately this is fairly easy to correct. Keep a dream diary, and even if you don't have one you remember, still write that down. Start conversations in the morning based on last night dreams and so on...

 

All this tells your deeper being/unconscious that you are starting to value dreams and you will thus start to remember them more.

 

 

Other alternatives would be taking dreaming herbs, or experimenting with something like ritual magick or shamanism.

Its strange but interacting with 'archetypal' energies and their various symbolic depictions is extremely activating to the unconscious mind, and will start to trigger all kinds of strange night events...

 

Seth.

 

Wonderful thank you. I already incorporate this for the most part but I do not want to touch entheogens any further, at least for the moment. Since it seems to stir up anxiety of loosing compeltey grasp to "this reality around me" which leaves me with an aftertaste of wanting to jump off a bridge, althou I must say here that I had suicidic thoughts once in my youth but never again. Maybe I just conceive so much of the mess around me that I think it's all me... well part of me anyway but too much of... me. They reveal such beautiful, wholesome and for some reason very female parts of me and at the same time a sense of falling or crumbling away in a vortex of unmanifested "something" ... that feels so unpleasant. I guess I should incorporate more mediation into my lifestyle, not touch sclerotia or mushrooms ever again due to their sinister nature and look more forward to higher/denser DMT-components.

 

In my eyes it's a very good start for someone who wants to remember dreams if they are interested why they wake up and suddenly feel exhilarated or with an utterly comfortable and warm feeling in the stomach or chest region. This interest in wanting to know more is fuel to the fire that will bring one in a deeper understanding.

 

To be honest with you Seth, I personally want to experience dreams as vivid and as clear as my waking life and I know it is possible.

 

I find that writing them down really helps. Not at first, but after a couple of weeks of it the recall gets a lot better, then after a few months the dreams get good enough you start to get teaching dreams, as well as more and more lucid dreams. I have found this to be the case with many many people.

 

Also I have noticed that taking 1000mg of GABA really helps makes the dreams more vivid and eventually lucid. This also worked with 4/5th of my sample group (well OK my sample group was only 5 people, but anyways lol).

 

Doesnt it, right? For me the same. It's like the manifestation of our thoughts into matter, words on paper brings them out of our "heads" and makes room for new experiences, while at the same time this does not make us forget, rather lets us recall that information easier. At least for me. Also and alternatively when I speak it out loud. I can recall things easier this way instead of keeping it all in my head.

 

 

At the highest level I've heard the real goal is deep dreamless (yet conscious) rejuvenating sleep.

 

Yet I assume we're pretty far from highest level. Sleep work can help us, figure out inner thoughts, demons and desires. There is the goal of lucidity and beyond that astral travel and connecting to some deep forces all the way to the nature of death. Seems worthwhile to me and step number one is remembering your dream.

 

Personally dream work tends to make my insomnia worse so usually after a few weeks I tend to give it up so I can sleep better. I've found and some research has backed me up that the last 90 minute REM cycle tends to be the most vivid. Waking up 90 or 100 minutes early, walk a bit, go to washroom, set your mind to remember your next dream and have a goal, tends to work best. For me commands and hypnotic instructions done earlier don't have nearly the same power.

 

I also had a method I called retell to remember. Before opening my eyes instead of trying to remember the dream, I'd 'retell' it mentally to myself, as if I was telling a story to a third person. My theory being this downloads the dream from precarious short term memory into long term. Then write out the dream on a nearby pad of paper, tittle first.

 

We are not far away from this level. It is really easy. Easier than one would think. This has a certain term in india and asia I believe aswell. It is the deepest state of relaxation one can achieve. Consciously!

 

You simply lay down on the floor, best not on a bed. You can get a cushion for the head. Then you rock yourself into "sleep". You breathe in from your toes up to your head and breathe out from your head into your toes, while you observe any stiff parts in your body and clear them.

 

When you are starting to feel you are completely relaxed, you solely focus on the breath and get yourself as calm as humanly possible. When you are new to this, the next steps might be super unfamiliar to you and you might bring yourself totally out of balance. At least that is what I did in the beginning and heard many many others did so aswell (since it's is so foreign):

 

Your body starts to vibrate. From what I know this does our spirit to bring our energetic body in a certain vibrational state, preparing it literally for lift off.

 

Like said this is the part where most fail, because this also lets your heart rate increase and you must be with your breath and calm yourself down. For me several times at the beginning the heart rate was like it wants to jump out of my chest. Remember also that the heart is the gateway to higher dimensions. My uncle has said similar in his practices. So much seems to go out solely from the heart, it's fascinating since we think only our brain could be capable of it... not at all.

 

The next step is also know as the next obstacle. Two huge obstacles before everything starts your body starts to stiffen up. This also can happen before going in a deeper state of meditation. Our body seems to do this because shortly before waking up in the morning again, our consciousness must find an easy way to land and re-attach itself into our physical body. Aswell as this helps the body to completely relax. While in this stage, your breathing feels like something very heavy lies on your chest. This feeling can be very unpleasant at the beginning because one tends to panic because the mind thinks the body does not get enough air. You can consciously only breath very, very shallow. But this is basicly what your "body does" by itself all night.

 

And then when you continue after this stage of consciously falling asleep, at a certain point you feel yourself in another body. Not breathing and very light. Like being in a "liquid" lighter than and less denser than water. Which can be quite scary for some people and that again, flings you right back into your bodily consciousness easily a third obstacle.

 

After this you are most likely already in your astral body and can travel what we call the astral plain or the astral dimension. In the outmost layers not different to our physical world. You can meet your neighbors, they mostly dont see you, or you can interact with other astral travelers. You can fly and I heard you can also "teleport". Switch locations via thought, thinking it up. This is a normal way of travelling in any higher dimension, since there is no "physical distance".

 

And then, the deeper you go, the deeper you "dream". This is apparently what we do all night.

 

Can we meet God/Tao/Source in this way? I am pretty sure, with enough training. Training? Yes, training because to get into higher dimensions and that means closer to Source/God/Tao means having a higher vibration.

 

The physical realm vibrates rather slow and each time you have to accelerate your vibration to get into higher places of conscious waking. Much of this can already be done during your day. Prepare yourself for the night, so to speak.

 

I personally believe by mastering this, one can achieve bodily immortality. Since you regain so much from it. You and your body can regenerate in such complete ways, it is truely something we have to bring to a broader audience at one point.

 

And yes, energy cultivation like Qi Gong or Tai Chi and other forms help wonderfully to get one further.

 

Like it is said in Taoism: To grow as spirit and become (in my terms: realize one is) immortal. And with this, all western illusionary ideas or thoughts of "death" dissolve, naturally and effortlessly.

 

 

All the best and thank you very much all of you for sharing your experiences! Let us all wake up!

Edited September 11, 2013 by 4bsolute

[Seth Ananda]

At the highest level I've heard the real goal is deep dreamless (yet conscious) rejuvenating sleep.

hey not my cup of tea personally.

I have a different theory that says that the 'masters' of certain traditions who claim to have stopped dreaming, have become so 'unbalanced' in regards to their emphasis of waking consciousness over all else, and so certain of the primacy of their 'conscious mind' over the unconscious, that they just stop dreaming as they have completely devalued and detached from any content from within.

 

I think there is a great deal of hubris in many traditions with their obsession and prioritisation of the conscious mind, which is really only a blip produced by the magnificent unconscious...

 

In my book, the genuine older traditions were a journey into the world of the Inner, which is why trance work, dream states, oracular teachings and so on were mastered.

[Formless Tao]

Dear Ones, it happened again. I was in a very vivid dream and I wake up, I try to remember everything went blank. From one second to another. How come? I dont have Altzheimer so I demand to be able to remember them. Maybe you are also already aware of the fact that what we call our "dreams" is basicly just our bodily consciousness disconnecting from our body and being in one of our other bodies. For many this is the astral body. For few this goes even more deeper. You can put effort into consciously falling asleep. This requires you to have an insane focus and from what I have read not many people can do this. Regardless it is truely something special which I personally want to achieve in the near future. But this requires some excess amount of energy in our system. Meaning one has to have a propper lifestyle of cultivating energy and not blowing it away during the day, falling asleep totally tired and exhausted. Light food in the evening and early nights are best for doing so. Now, whenever I can I also put effort into remembering what happened during my body fell asleep. But like written in the first line this does not (yet) happen very often and I get a little frustrated. The curiosity of understanding this part of our reality is so strong that it lets me quickly get over my lack of rememberance. Shall we put effort into remembering our "dreams"? If so, why? What benefit is there? And why do we have in general such a hard time remembering what happened? Does this happen purposely or is this yet another lazy attitude what we had mastered in our childhood? Curious, let me know what I obviously dont know. All the best!

 

 

I personally can remember dreams without much trouble. If I wake up while dreaming I always remember the dream. If I wake up after the dream already finished I normally find when I relax in the bathroom or read and relax my mind, one word or thought that pops into my mind usually does the trick of remembering the dream.

 

I find I rarely dream with my usual optimal 7.5 hours of sleep unless im stressed or excited.

 

When I sleep for more than 7.5 hours I usually dream. The more I sleep ie 10 hours the more likely I will dream.

 

I have also found through trial and error that if I sleep say 7.5 hours and then wake up and then go back to sleep for another couple of hours I always dream.

 

The most realistic dream I had recently was after I had been doing some night Yoga and meditation I was completely relaxed and went to bed.

 

In my dream I could see myself lying on the bed, so I tried to reach my hand down from near the ceiling to touch my head that was sleeping. As I got closer to touching my sleeping head I had a feeling/thought not to touch my head otherwise if I did I would not wake up from my sleep ie die. So I pulled my hand back and didnt touch my sleeping head. I knew that I was dreaming in my dream, but when I woke up I remembered it straight away and it felt so real.

 

The reason I couldn't touch my sleeping head in my dream because I would die seems to be connected with what I had previously heard my mother say about dreams that if you die in your dream it means that in real life you have died. For some reason the touching of my sleeping head reminded me of what I heard about dieing in my dream and it confused my dreaming mind/consciousness.

 

After thinking about it now I wish I had of touched my head from the third person view that I had while dreaming just to see what, if anything would have happened.

 

My experiences

 

Peace

Edited September 11, 2013 by Formless Tao

[Thunder_Gooch]

Looking at the taobums time, this post occurred around the time I had my dream last night.

 

Weird.

Dear Ones,

 

it happened again. I was in a very vivid dream and I wake up, I try to remember everything went blank. From one second to another. How come? I dont have Altzheimer so I demand to be able to remember them.

 

Maybe you are also already aware of the fact that what we call our "dreams" is basicly just our bodily consciousness disconnecting from our body and being in one of our other bodies. For many this is the astral body. For few this goes even more deeper.

 

You can put effort into consciously falling asleep. This requires you to have an insane focus and from what I have read not many people can do this. Regardless it is truely something special which I personally want to achieve in the near future. But this requires some excess amount of energy in our system. Meaning one has to have a propper lifestyle of cultivating energy and not blowing it away during the day, falling asleep totally tired and exhausted. Light food in the evening and early nights are best for doing so.

 

Now, whenever I can I also put effort into remembering what happened during my body fell asleep. But like written in the first line this does not (yet) happen very often and I get a little frustrated. The curiosity of understanding this part of our reality is so strong that it lets me quickly get over my lack of rememberance.

 

Shall we put effort into remembering our "dreams"? If so, why? What benefit is there? And why do we have in general such a hard time remembering what happened? Does this happen purposely or is this yet another lazy attitude what we had mastered in our childhood?

 

Curious, let me know what I obviously dont know.

 

All the best!

[skydog]

hey not my cup of tea personally.

I have a different theory that says that the 'masters' of certain traditions who claim to have stopped dreaming, have become so 'unbalanced' in regards to their emphasis of waking consciousness over all else, and so certain of the primacy of their 'conscious mind' over the unconscious, that they just stop dreaming as they have completely devalued and detached from any content from within.

 

I think there is a great deal of hubris in many traditions with their obsession and prioritisation of the conscious mind, which is really only a blip produced by the magnificent unconscious...

 

In my book, the genuine older traditions were a journey into the world of the Inner, which is why trance work, dream states, oracular teachings and so on were mastered.

 

Interesting, that resonates with me somewhat too.

Edited September 11, 2013 by skydog

[Jeff]

hey not my cup of tea personally.

I have a different theory that says that the 'masters' of certain traditions who claim to have stopped dreaming, have become so 'unbalanced' in regards to their emphasis of waking consciousness over all else, and so certain of the primacy of their 'conscious mind' over the unconscious, that they just stop dreaming as they have completely devalued and detached from any content from within.

 

I think there is a great deal of hubris in many traditions with their obsession and prioritisation of the conscious mind, which is really only a blip produced by the magnificent unconscious...

 

In my book, the genuine older traditions were a journey into the world of the Inner, which is why trance work, dream states, oracular teachings and so on were mastered.

 

Hi Seth,

 

I would disagree. Dreams are sort of energy flowing in the subconscious mind during sleep. Part of the process of spiritual growth is the "accepting and letting go" of fears and issues in the subconscious. As the issues are released, it is kind of like the conscious mind expands into what had been previously subconscious. Over time, there is less and less subconscious stuff to give rise to dreams.

 

Regards,

Jeff

[RongzomFan]

-

Edited September 11, 2013 by alwayson

[Jeff]

Norbu openly states what he practices in night practice. He practices some serious stuff during lucid dreaming.

 

If you dig around you can find the information.

 

Thanks. That is helpful to know.

 

You also have said that he has specifically stated that he is not enlightened. Does that also mean that he does not "reside in rigpa"?