Hey guys and girls,
I once did a lucid dreaming course with a Tibetan monk. It was a really cool day with lots of awesome information. Anyway he was telling the class that the main function in Tibetan Buddhism for lucid dreamind is to teach yourself how to remain aware and conscious while in another state. What this does is enable you to train your mind so when you die and enter through the bardo's you are aware and do not lose yourself to the ultimate dream. If you can remain aware and not lose yourself to the bardo's you will then transcend physical reality and become a being on a higher plane of existance. If you lose your consciousness you are destined to be reborn on the physical plane for another life.
I have read a report of a buddhist monk smoking DMT. He reported that this was about as deep as one could go into the Bardo's without actually dying.
My thoughts are this. What if we were to use DMT in this way? If everytime we had a breakthrough dose hold onto the fact of where and who we are. Observing but always aware that this is just one the Bardo's. I know several times I have come back from sessions and after being totally wrapped up in the situation, I have been suprised that I even had a body. If this was our intention when we smoke maybe that would be training and practise so at the point of death we could transcend this plane for eternity?
Care to share your thoughts on this?
Cheers.

I don't know much about this, though two thoughts occurred to me while reading it.

1) What does it mean to retain awareness of yourself in another state?

More specifically, what sort of reference point would we be using? I think this touches on that quote "are we humans who have spiritual experiences or spiritual beings who have human experiences?"

The goal could become to learn to retain awareness while going about our daily lives, using DMT to remind our human selves what hyperreality feels like. So DMT is an exercise of waking up from this dream, but what is beyond hyperspace? If we say that regular dreams are a level below our average awareness, and that we have our daily sober awareness, and DMT provides a hyperawareness, then wouldn't it make sense that there is a level beyond hyperspace? Could we ever know when "the next level" is the highest? And what's beneath dreaming, is that a zen state of non-being?


It sounds a bit too wishy-washy for my taste, but you could say that all levels of awareness are relative? Maybe then the answer to "retaining awareness" is to simply retain an acknowledgement of some of the other levels our selves inhabit?

Very thought provoking indeed.


on another thought stream:
2) What about bufotenine as a vehicle to hyperspace? Sense of self is basically retained, in that you are aware of your day to day body and don't have the total 'mind fuck'.

Usually with DMT thoughts take away from the peak of the experience, and when memories start to pour in it's on its way out. So can you be aware of yourself without thoughts? "I think, therefore I am"... Maybe a peak DMT experience is too close to the ultimate dream; bufo might be easier for training as it leaves the mind intact.



Just my two cents

Very interesting stuff. A very good book on this topic:

The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

http://www.amazon.com/Ti...id=1268486371&sr=1-1

Its interesting but I think Iboga/Ibogaine might also take one somewhere akin to the bardo realms. And even during the deepest part of the visionary experience, one retains awareness of themselves.

I really like this post. I dont believe we have a body, our brain chemicals tell us we do to creat an illusion of seperatness. Serotonin didnt come into the picture until later in evolution and soo god knows what we had before and how percieved reality back then. Think of yourself with a group of friends with being self-concsious, you are essentially jsut a collective consiousness contributing thoughts to the subject much like your mind works.

I soooo get you and have actually had the same thoughts
Good post and I can't really add much to it. Wake up. Be aware. Observe and let you awareness flow.

By retaining self awareness in another state I mean being conscious of yourself. Take dreaming for example. To teach yourself lucid dreaming you have to become conscious of the fact you are sleeping while dreaming. To do this you walk around all day testing reality. This means that you are aware that while awake you could actually be asleep dreaming. Do you see what I mean? I dont think that dreaming is a level down. I think it is as real and valid as the awake state. Most of us live in the now. What we see is what we get. Its only when its over that we say "oh I was just dreaming" or on the other side sometimes say "did that really happen or was I dreaming it". Being aware of yourself while in another state means always test your reality and know where you are and what plane you are currently operating on. The tibetian yogi's are apparently capable of unbroken consciousness. They go to sleep and do not lose awareness right through deep sleep into dreams and then back to wakefulness again. No blackouts. To me that is mind power.
And azreal you are right I think. For example 2 Dimensional beings can never realise there is a third dimension. They would be flat on a board only percieving left/right and forward/backward. We as 3 dimensional beings can see how they dont even know they are missing the bigger picture as we can see there is so much more to the universe with 3 dimensions. 4 dimensional beings could look at us and see us and everything we see but to us they would not exist as we cannot percieve them in the fourth dimension. You would never be able to tell how many levels there are. Only look back and see how many levels up you are. Does what I am saying here make sense to anyone?

Never tried Bufo. Its on the to do list.
Iboga sounds crazy. I am interested but it also sounds really scary. I dont know about that one. 30 hrs from woe to go is a long time to spend if you dont go somewhere nice.

Collective consciousness is facinating too. It proves to me that we operate on different planes simultaneously. We go to sleep and dream or go into hyperspace and then come back. I wonder if the enlightened can operate to some degree on many planes simultaneously?

Sillysyban

Lovely thread my friend, i have been looking into Tibetan philosophy for quite some years now. When i went to India for a month it really opened up my eyes as to the illusion of our reality, my heart was all a flutter to finally discover a philosophy and school of thought that i could really identify with. I find the Tibetan Book of the Dead incredibly fascinating, I cant explain to you how spice has just confirmed so many of my questions and thoughts about reality and the true nature of my mind, we are all one and apart of each other so it really makes sense to base your actions within compassion for all.

I think everyone that we meet during our life time and everything that we experience is just a mirror of ourselves and our consciousness. I have experienced so much of what is writing within the Tibetan Book of The Dead during my spice journeys and the similarities are uncanny. Lucid dream also interests me greatly as our dream world other wise is just lost to us and we cant actually learn very much from our dreams unless we look into and practice lucid dreaming techniques. Yoga, meditation, Tibetan philosophy and entheogens are all inextricably linked within my journey...

Again thank you very much for this beautiful thread...


Much Peace and Compassion

I find that there is something much more graceful and humbling to be found in the experience of ego death, than going into these experiences trying to maintain some hold on your personal identity. I go in alot maintaining awareness of who I am already..the ego death can be a great gift.

I dont know where I stand in terms of buddhism..I sense a a distinct sytle of nihlism in alot of buddhist practices..expecially in monkhood..are these people really living?..though I guess we all have differnt definitions of what it is to live.

Alot of buddhist philosophy I like..and i really like the dali lama..but I just feel that there aspects to it that are not for me as well..I dont believe that "all is illusion" for one thing..that's just soo..i dunno dualistic I find. I dont believe in illusions in that sense..every single thing is valid..illusions are things..they are tangible to the ones who have them..so they stand for something..I dont belieive that individuality is illusion any more than unity is illusion...for me it seems unfair to seperate things that way.

..If that makes any bit of sense...

Fractal Enchantment

I see where you are coming from my friend but i don't think there is a lack of tangibility or meaning due to the illusion that we build within ourselves and within our own distorted perceptions of reality. Ego and ignorance hold us back in seeing the true nature and pure beauty of existence...


Much Peace and Compassion

see I wouldn't exactly say that ego or ignorance hold us back from the true nature of existance..thats still too dualistic a viewpoint for me to deal with..

Ego and ignorance are both PART of the true nature of existance...otherwise they wouldnt exist..so they are just as valid a path to understanding as any other path.

Ego and ignorance arent things Id mix up either..you save a whale..thats ego..you feel sympathy for a dying man, thats ego..you decide to eat healthy instead of unhealthy..thats ego..even the decisions to attempt to trancend ego, is ego.

Ignorance is the lack of information..its like being in the dark..walking through the shadows..for some this experience is exactly that which brings them to deeper understanding..without experienceing ignorance they might have not go to that next level..so in that sense the ignorance was a stepping stone TOWARDS an understanding of the true nature of existance..

That all being said..Im no so sure there is any one "true nature of existance"..simply becasue i find that viewpoint equally as dualisitc untimatily..and I know how that sounds..but I really do believe in subjectivity as strongly as I do objectivity..so from that perspective such thing as a "true nature" will be forever up for grabs..

Id like to say I believe in infinity, but that has its own set of problems, limitations(which seems counterintuitive concidering the word)..I put infinity on reserve becasue its the closet think I have language wise..but I feel a higher level of mathematical understanding is required to conceptualize what infinity might be shaped like..wont get into that here though.

Word games..we play lots of word games.

Life is what you make of it.

The ego is a good and natural thing but only when trained. Modern culture mostly has untamed egos. Ignorence is based on what some wants to believe without allowing objection. Its part of humans but you gotta work to too free oneself from it. Like fear we have to move away from it.

You dont need to move away from fear..not at all..

You need to get closer to it..get to know it..ACCEPT it..fear is natural..you will ALWAYS experience it..accepting it and moving through it, and pulling away becasue of it are 2 very different things.

Yeah man. I had a teacher once who gave a great metaphor for perceiving a dimension beyond our own:

"Draw a stick figure on a piece of paper.

If you could reach your hand through the paper so that only what was in the sheet was visible, imagine what that'd look like... first some separate circles as your fingers come through and then a big blob by the time you reach your palm.

But to the 2d stick figure wouldn't even see that, he's flat and would only see lines of varying size next to him. It is us in the third dimension who can accurately perceive the second, his perception is limited. He doesn't even know what's around him, a circle and a square of the same height are still just a line of the same length unless he's moving around inside one. How would he get out then? However sure he may assert himself to be, he cannot know much about his environment except by exploration and theory - all of which will be incomplete.

If he lives in two dimensions and can't see in two dimensions, could he even imagine what the 3D hand really looks like? How about the person attached to it? You are this two dimensional man, so to say, and simply cannot know everything going on around you - let alone what's beyond you."

He also had some diagrams of what it would be like for a stick figure to eat breakfast and have digestion split him in half




I like what you said about dreams being real and valid as opposed to some "lesser" reality, my hierarchy seems shortsighted

You are most welcome
I love this sort of discussion.
I think fear and ego definately hold us back. How many of us here would tell someone who is afraid to take entheogens that they are missing a chance to see how the world is without filters. To me thats how I see the world when I am tripping. Its like the filters are gone and you notice everything. Its only those that are unafraid to explore that find new horizons. having said that fear is also a necessary part of life. Without it we would probably not survive our childhood. Its all about balance my friends.
The human brain takes in 4 billion bits a second of data and our rational mind only processes 2000 bits a second. Thats a hell of a lot of information that we choose to filter out. Who knows what we are missing. Although I do think this is necessary thing to be able to function in day to day life.

Has anyone read Plato's philosophy on the man in the cave. He talks about a man that is put in a cave with very limited light. The only thing he can see of the world outside is through a small window. At first he cannot see and his world inside the cave is dark. He has lots of trouble operating in this environment. Over time his eyesight becomes better in the dark and his other senses more acute. He can now see and hear everything and in totally in tune with his environment. Then he gets released into the world. At first it is so bright that he is blinded. He cannot see anything. As time passes he begins to see the world again. Colors are amazingly rich and the world is beautiful. He is master of his domain. Until he gets put back in the cave where it is so dim he cannot see.

Maybe that is the trouble. Maybe we are doomed to be able to only operate fully on one level at a time. We may glimpse possibilities through the small window and get a feeling of hyperspace/alternate realities but we can never truly get to know it while we are mostly operating on this level. Maybe when we die we will only get to see the physical world through the small window.

I wonder if there is a nexus there where entities can discuss their travels through the physical planes and compare notes.

Plato's allegory of The Cave has some nice parallels with the Matrix trilogy.

Some things the Matrix did to extend the metaphor:

Neo unplugs, sees the real world (goes outside the cave), and it is unbelievable to those who have not unplugged (they're still shackled in the cave)... but instead of only being in one realm at a time, everybody is already outside the cave (in the post apocalyptic 'real world' hooked up on some table/tank, and they still have no idea 'outside' exists. The shackles of the cave are the most real thing about it, as the average person can't just wake up and unplug - especially if they don't know that's an option. It's like finding out the cave is all smoke and mirrors.

So rather than going outside and then back in to talk about what's outside, Neo finds what is beyond the everyday illusion and still plugs back in on occasion. The overlap of realities is important. The cave from the Matrix is created in/by the world outside of it, whereas in Plato's version the cave is just another sector of reality that you can wander in/out of once you're no longer bound to its walls.

I'm not saying one cave story is more valid than the other. Even though the Matrix is not my favorite film, it's ideas generally resonate with me more than those of ancient Greek philosophers.

Great convo, do you have a link to that report you cited?
I think lucid dreaming is awesome, i've had a cople of experiences with this but never actually trained the technique properly. Do you keep a dream journal? Do you have other tips for training this and dou you know if this will affect your amount of sleep as i am not a sound sleeper)?

I also love Plato's cave idea, it's one of the greatest metaphors ever written.

Peace
Elpo

Yeah, good chat! same question to you. I heard Terrence McKenna talking about that guy...

Edit: YAY!!! my 1000th post!!!!!!!!

Sorry Elpo I dont have a link. It was something that Blackclo (the guy who started this site) told me a long time ago. It may be in one of his posts maybe. I have books and books of recorded dreams. to me it is the most important part of lucid dreaming. If you record your dreams and do reality checks at least 6-10 times a day (Really stop and look around to check if you are dreaming) you cannot go wrong. there are a couple of good websites. Check out http://www.ld4all.com/
great site on lucid dreaming. Good luck.

For those interested in boosting Dreaming Orthomolecularly speaking, recently I ran across some basic formulas utilizing some supplements many of you have heard of... Personally, I find 1-1.5 liquid Melatonin alone before bed to lead to expanded intensified dream states. Here's some ideas: (P.S. this may be worth of a new thread):
http://grasshopperx.com/...ucid-dreaming-20-part-1/

100-150mg 5-HTP 30 minutes or less before bed.
Set your alarm for 4-5 hours after you go to sleep (allow 30 minutes for this.) When the alarm wakes you up, take 4-8 mg of galantamine, optionally with choline (250 – 500 mg, citrate or bitartrate), and go back to sleep.
For extra credit: add an a dopamine precursor like Mucuna Pruriens, used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries, to layer an element of control to your newfound lucidity. Take it at the same time as the galantamine. 200 to 400 mg. Same caveats as serotonin apply (i.e. don’t take with MAO inhibitors.)
Allow 48 hours before the next cycle.

Interesting. thanks, I will take a look. Also just the fact of setting your alarm to wake up after 4-5 hours of sleep, getting up for a while and then going back to sleep for another few hours dramatically increases your chances of a lucid dream. Couple that with intention and self suggestion and it wont be long before it happens regulary. I havent done it for a while now. I have been too slack lately but when I keep a dream journal, reality check during the day, wake up at night and use self suggestion I can get up to 4-5 lucid dreams a week after a few months. When I stop doing these things they gradually drop down to 1 every 6 months or so. Also getting 8 hrs sleep is pretty important too. I have never tried supplements but it looks promising.
Cheers.