bodhisamaya wrote:

I used to live in a Polyamorous Tantric Sex community on Maui and LSD was a daily ritual among those who lived there and those attending weekend retreats.  So I got to witness the effects of it as a spiritual aid in a very intimate way.  Though I did not use it myself as advised by the Lama I was studying under.  Perhaps lust was affecting the results, but the people using it seemed to not achieve lasting results once the effects wore off.   Most of the students of the Dharma Center here in Kauai use LSD, mushrooms and/or weed, but those who do not are achieving much more profound realizations.

I don't understand how to quantify and compare 'profound realizations' or 'spiritual' things, but I do know that daily use of psychedelics is symptomatic of ignorance of the chemicals and reflects a mentality that doesn't seem to know how to use chemicals or other tools strategically in conjunction with awareness of their properties and effects.

Don't get me wrong, I'm the kind of person who is still working on that problem that I must breathe oxygen and consume food to live, so I'm not speaking out of a desire to advocate this and that external dependency.

Last edited by ruiner (2009 November 14, 1:14 pm)

Did we start out to explore LD to study japanese?! Anyway. I'm on the side of considering drugs, cheating. Interestingly I haven't had any sleeping issues since I started my program at university. I'm usually falling asleep straight, unless my girlfriend is still awake

I'm trying to see if I'll manage to get into the matrix

OTOH: How about hypnosis to learn? Sorry for reinforcing that question :p

TaylorSan wrote:

@ruiner
You are absolutely correct - I have very little understanding of brain chemical processes and metacognition (I'll leave that to others more qualified). It is truly not my intention to sound dismissive about them, as I am very interested, and find these areas of great value to the discussion. My views only come from things I've done and observed and read, and are VERY limited. You are absolutely correct - I definitely have a view of reality based on a limited belief system (BIG time)! Actually I really enjoy studying the brain, and scientific knowledge, and it is an area I will continue to learn about (taking classes about that now). My purpose for writing in this thread is to share my experiences with people who are interested in learning LD, in hopes that the advice and anecdotes offer value, and can possibly help someone succeed in achieving it. It was not to talk about my beliefs. I guess I touched on this because I felt it was relevant the subject, to give context to my anecdotes, and in part to respond to some of the posts. Really I find myself agreeing with most of your posts, very interesting and valuable to the thread.

That's cool, I didn't mean to come off sounding so 'snarky', in retrospect. I'm more interested now in one specific state of consciousness, personally, developed in relative isolation, rather than something like what you describe above, but I'm sure it could be rewarding if one thought it was interesting and tried it while maintaining a critical, flexible outlook.

IceCream wrote:

hmm... im just about to go to sleep, so, il make it short:
i haven't actually read any dennet yet, but il have a look at it tomorrow.

but the thing that is really striking is that whether all thought is conscious, and whether all thought is controllable seem to be two seperate things.
At least, it doesn't seem obvious that one necessarily follows from the other...
why do you think it does?

To me, I don't understand how you'd even differentiate thought and agency, care to explain? If it has to do with a passive observer, then you've already lost me, because I don't believe that's possible... Just read Dennett or something and agree or disagree, I'm too lazy and secretive to go into further detail. It's annoying, I've been too tempted by this thread to talk about all sorts of personal stuff, hehe.

Last edited by ruiner (2009 November 15, 2:51 am)

I've had somewhat lucid dreams before- rarely- maybe once every year or two I realize I'm dreaming and can control some aspect but not others. I've always wished there was a way to better control this... ability- and to be honest this thread is the first time I've really every heard of Lucid Dreaming.

There was also a time when I was regularly meditating in the mornings- I'd wake up an hour before my regular wake up time and meditate. There were a few times where I ended up falling asleep but not realizing I had fallen asleep until I woke up- I don't remember a lot of details about these experiences as it was a few years back and I didn't write down any of the details.

I've read the links people posted and I think I'm going to start a dream journal and start using lucidipedia's online dream journal- this sounds like something I've always wanted to do but never realized how. The dream signals are so obvious but something I have never thought of- now I just need to think of some that work best for me...

Like most things, lucid dreaming looks like it take time and effort to get good at- but doesn't that make sense? Otherwise we'd all be doing it naturally all the time.

Ugh.. I still need to get better at remember dreams.. Yesterday morning I had remembered quite a lot more than I usually do, but today I didn't remember anything

One of the best ways imexp to have lucid dreams is to wake up earlier than usual like captal describes.  So say if you normally sleep 8 hrs, sleep 6, set your alarm, get up and do some stuff. You could study Japanese, meditate, organize your stamp collection, do whatever. If you spend a good half hour or more of this time visualizing what you will do (and even write it down) in the LD this can help a lot too. Always remember to strengthen your intention to "BE LUCID". Then go back to bed and do some induction techniques. It may take some time to fall asleep (or not), but if you can be patient and let sleep happen, this can actually help too. The thing about this is that you will go right back into REM, and will be in a good position to be "awake" in the dream. Then sleep for those 2 hrs and hopefully be lucid.

LD to me feels like a balancing act - If your too deep in Dream, then your carried into it and aren't lucid. If you're too lucid, or more accurately, too awake, then there is little or diminished imagery/sensation dream world etc, like everything will be grey and/or there is less vividness to things. This all can vary to many degrees imexp. A great trick to deepen or maintain LD is spinning. There are others but I swear by this one! I have been able to keep riding the LD for periods of up to over an hour because of this (My longest one I just let it go after about 1 and half hours, because I wanted to write down the dream and not forget it...I swear I could have kept it going though). It works so well, it's crazy. You can also "spin" into a different place. There is always a sensation of the dream leaving, (for me it often starts with vision) and I usually use this as an immediate queue to spin, as it can die super fast. Even subtle fluctuations are queues to me that things are about to fade out, and I'll do it. It's weird, for me it's almost like I'm grabbing a hold of the world and spinning myself, like pushing a merry go round (is that what they're called?)... hard to describe.

Almost more tricky for me then becoming lucid is staying in the "sweet spot". I am always learning more and more about it, and really about how to handle myself in LD. It's like, if I get too excited it can all go away in an instant (in fact there is a good chance the first time lucid dreamer will be so excited that they "did it!" that it will immediately disappear... still happens to me sometimes LOL). I'm learning to be patient, relaxed, let it come to me and use my experiences to maintain the balance. Sometimes it's super hard, sometimes I can just enjoy the LD as I'm in the "sweet spot". I think that LD is really a tricky skill that for me takes practice, but I have found that over the years I have gotten a lot better at it (and I don't consider myself really skilled yet, maybe intermediate at best - I've been a stop and go practitioner for a long time, but mostly stop as it can require a lot of effort for me), and refined a lot of little things (mostly to do with flight). I think that some people may be naturally gifted in LD for sure, and won't have to work so hard.

One more major thing to share - If you do reality state testing during the waking state (highly recommended) then you can amp it up with visualization as well. Try as vividly as possible to imagine a dream task. It would go like this -

Test your state "Am I dreaming? Is THIS a dream? (Really be as serious as you can here - don't just go through the motions QUESTION it!).
-hop, look at a clock or writing, flip a light switch - confirm the state. Maybe even do it twice (dreams can fool you).
- Ok your not dreaming your awake, so think "I'm not in a dream, but if I were, I would recognize that I was dreaming and ...." - Resolve to recognize the Dream state and be lucid.
Now visualize the dream task.
The more often you do this, the greater success you will probably have (I make no guarantees, but I'm pretty confident in stating this).

It's funny, it will work, but dreams will have a sense of humor... they may well **** with you! I used to do this exercise and visualize myself flying up into the mountains - I would circle the highest peak and sail down to the summit, a snowboard manifesting on my feet. I then would imagine the most epic ride down, perfect powder, huge 300 foot cliff drops and ridiculous jumps etc.
- So it worked... eventually. At first I would float up and see the mountains, then loose it. Then I got to the mountains but no snowboard... I just crashed into the snow. Finally I got there, manifested the board.... but no boots! My bare feet were loose in these bindings and the board swiveled and swerved as I desperately tried to ride it... like it was really happening... ridiculous, but I saw the humor in it.

Anyway I eventually got my epic flight/ride... and it was worth the effort. The more I practiced LD the better I got at getting there... and staying there....and actually having things work how I wanted. Still, LD for me is never totally "GOD mode". There are some crazy powers and I can make things happen, but it is still a "dream"... and that is half the fun.

Haha - sorry to ramble, it's just that LD has long been one of my favorite things, and it's rare in my experience to find people who know about it.

Taylor- I spent most of last night and a lot of today just reading- in the back of my head I've always known something like this is possible, but I've never known how, or what it was called. I'm excited to get things started, which is why I'm reading info online and watching videos on youtube (there's some intro videos by lucidipedia there).

TaylorSan wrote:

@bombpersons - captal is absolutely right. I swear you will have one just for the mere fact that you want to. One of the ways is to just say to your self "I'm gonna have a lucid dream", and leave it at that. No pressure, no stress, no effort, no time table... just a casual statement made with confidence. I may not happen for a while but it will happen.

I actually think I may have had one in the past. I remember one day, waking up in the middle of the night downstairs in the spare room (having went to sleep in my room). I ended up getting up and thinking it was really weird and talked to my parents. Then I went back to my room, but in the morning I asked them about it and they had no idea what I was talking about. I was pretty sure I had talked to them... Really spooked me out at the time

TaylorSan wrote:

And just the fact that you are remembering more dreams is the main thing...all the technical mumbo jumbo aside, it is really just as simple as remembering your dreams, which leads you to remembering you're dreaming. From there you play with it, and if your motivated enough... skys the limit as to how well you can develop it. Just like anything you can figure out you own best ways to do things, and things you want to try out. I'm kinda stoked for you, because well...I think it's a fun thing to discover and explore.

Thanks The whole idea of LD is fascinating. Just vaguely remembering dreams has made me more inclined to go to sleep (and more quickly). Previously I had just thought of it as a waste of time and tried to stay awake as much as I could

OK guys.
You REALLY need to lay off the drugs.....lol....

As long as I don't start hearing about homoerotic lucid dreams
with Heisig in them, I think we'll be fine.

Anyway, here are some good wikipedia links about
some of the topics mentioned in this thread

wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_awakening
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations_in_the_sane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

IceCream wrote:

lol. ive never tried them... apparently if your using them for sleeping, its much more effective to use one of those 10000lux bulbs after you wake up because it produces the melatonin itself (i think)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_response_curve
has anyone tried this btw? does it work?

but for lucid dreams... i dunno? don't you have to overdose? i've never looked into it... whats it like?

Lucid dreaming?  Difficult.  Kinda fun.  Mostly pointless, unless you either get really good (disclaimer: I'm not very good at it) or attach some sort of spiritual significance to it (which I don't).  And, no melanin does not cause lucid dreams.  Melanin regulates your biological clock, completely different.

Light therapy?  Yes, I've tried it.  Yes, it works.  That's how I try to keep synchronized with a "normal" schedule despite my moderately bad DSPS.  When I have it working, I wake when I want to, well rested, and without an alarm.  Unfortunately having noisy roommates who stay up late and loud really throws a wrench in it...

You don't really need to buy special lights either.  I use bog-standard fluorescents to wake up and an orange "Party Bulb" for before-bed reading.  A Brownian noise generator and a sound meter are a nice touch, too, for dealing with not-very noisy, but still irritating house-mates who stay up watching late-night TV. 

Anyway, what I do is get a bedside alarm clock.  I use a Nintendo DS for this purpose because it's possible to set it up so you don't see it lying in bed (very important) and the alarm isn't obnoxious.  I take the "alarm clock" time set my alarm to that, and subtract 12 hours.  That's my "nightfall time".  An hour past my "nightfall time" is my "very strict bed time."  Five hours before alarm time is my "awake and awake is awake time."  Two hours before alarm time is "awake is really awake" time. 

For example, my current schedule:
6 pm -- "nightfall time"  Turn off computer.  Turn off TV.  Turn down lights.  Field complaints from house-mates about how dark it is.  Go to bed when tired.

7 pm -- "strict bed-time"  Be in bed, tired or not.  Lights off.  Noise machine on at about 55 dB.  Complain loudly if disturbed.  If awakened, minimize exposure to light, and go back to bed.

1 am -- "awake and awake is awake"  Begin free-running rules: If I'm tired, I'll try to sleep.  This is the perfect window for LD, by the way.  If not tired, I'll do stuff, though I'll avoid bright lights.  Try to avoid waking house-mates, who have finally collapsed into emergency recovery-sleep, the poor souls.

4 am -- "awake is awake"  If I'm up, I'll stay up until 6 pm rolls around again, only 14 hours in the future.

6 am -- "alarm time"  Turn on bright lights.  If not already awake (it happens sometimes) wake up to the ear-shattering tones of house-mates various alarm clocks.  Remember just why I'm going to bed early.  Otherwise, try to avoid being obnoxiously chipper as they haul their sorry carcasses to the coffee machines and morning anti-depressants.  (Chronic sleep deprivation causes all kinds of havoc.)    People hate being told "I told you so," and sometimes actions speak louder than words. 

8 am -- Turn off bright lights.

Taylorsan, how often can one achieve LD? From my understanding, even people who are reasonably experienced/knowledgeable about getting them still get LDs very rarely.

Do you also know about the little machine you can wear? Novadreamer I think it is called. What do you think of it?