Mastery – Sri Madhava Ashish
Here is a fine comment from a Sri Madhava Ashish – a.k.a. Alexander Phipps, a British-born Hindu mystic, writer and teacher who lived from 1920-1997.
“The Master is one with the spirit. He exemplifies the final attainment. He is what is as yet only a partially realized potential in your own being. You can “recognize” him only to the extent that you can feel the responses in your essence when like answers to like.”
Sri Madhava published some very fine books, that are definitely not for the beginner. But for someone truly interested in the spiritual path, they are well worth the effort:
“Man, the Measure of All Things” (Sri Krishna Prem, Sri Madhava Ashish)
“Man, Son of Man” (Sri Madhava Ashish)
“An Open Window:Dream as Everyman’s Guide to the Spirit” (Sri Madhava Ashish)
Sleep
“There is between sleep and us something like a pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force, sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act. We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the slave who serves him.”
Maurice Blanchot (French Literary Theorist and Author, 1907-2003)
Spirituality, Depression and Suicide
It is an interesting sign of the times that a major medical publication – the Southern Medical Journal – has dedicated an entire section this month to a series of papers on the Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project that is being supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Attention to our spirituality is an important part of fulfilling our potential and treating people in trouble. It is no accident that Integrated Medicine always includes all of the five major dimensions of an individual:
- Physical
- Psychological
- Social
- Subtle
- Spiritual
To get a bit technical, each of the five domains or dimensions contains something of each of the others. The body, mind and spirit and not separate but part of one whole. Mind, consciousness and spirit permeate the body.
We sometimes use the technical term “Five Interlinked Nested Domains” or “FINDS,” to reflect this reality.
An important principle of this interconnected health model is that it’s almost always a mistake to look for a single cause for a problem, imbalance or illness. Not only is it usually incorrect to think about “one illness, one cause,” but it is also usually not enough to use just one therapy or one health maintenance plan: Carefully coordinated combinations are key, for they generate a powerful synergy.
Because the domains are interlinked, physical and psychological health, to say nothing of our social health, and the health of our subtle systems are difficult to maintain without spiritual health. The road to spiritual health begins with understanding and following the natural laws of the Universe, finding your true Purpose and applying both to the service of others.
The articles in this issue of the Southern Medical Journal are excellent.
Here are some highlights:
Dan Blazer from Duke University provides an introduction that gives a fine overview of the growing field of spirituality in medicine in general and depression in particular
Harold Koenig, also from Duke has an article entitled, “Spirituality and Depression: A Look at the Evidence”
Bob Cloninger from Washington University in St. Louis writes about “Spirituality and the Science of Feeling Good.”
Unfortunately the abstracts and papers are not yet available on line, except to members of the Southern Medical Association. Hopefully the Templeton Foundation will be able to arrange with the Journal to make at least the abstracts freely available.
If they do, I shall let you know.
Otherwise, if you have ready access to a library, and if you are interested in this important and rapidly growing field, I am sure that they will be able to help you.
Meditation and Learning to Pay Attention
I have talked before about the increasing difficulties that we all have with paying attention.
Over the years we have tried all sorts of things to help people to become better at focusing and controlling their attention, from games, to biofeedback devices to meditation. It is the last of those that seems to be the most effective.
We know from personal experience that paying close attention to one thing can keep us from noticing something else. If we are shown two visual signals half a second apart, we usually miss the second because we are still focused on the first one. We are consciously unaware of the second flash. It is rather like missing something when we blink our eyes, and indeed psychologists call it “attentional blink.” Many psychologists have assumed that attention is something fixed: we can only give a certain amount of attention to one thing at a time before we have to move onto something else or get a kind of brain freeze.
But we have known for some time now that sometimes people do notice the second flash of light, and with practice they can notice it all the time, suggesting that the limitation on seeing the two flashes is not entirely physical, but that it may be possible to bring it under mental control. The first style of meditation that I ever learned was Vipassana, and I well remember being astonished at how quickly my attention and focus began to improve, even when I was not meditating.
Now there is an important new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that suggests that attention does not have a fixed capacity, and that it can be improved by directed mental training such as meditation.
The work was done in Richard Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the Waisman Center for Brain Imaging and Behavior and published online in the journal PLoS Biology. (This is one of the growing number of open access journals, and for people not yet convinced of the value of open journals have a look at this paper, in which everything is available to you for free.)
The investigators recruited people who were interested in meditation to study whether conscious mental training can affect attention.
They examined the effects of three months of intensive training in Vipassana meditation, which focuses on reducing mental distraction and improving sensory awareness.
Volunteers were asked to look for target numbers that were mixed into a series of distracting letters and quickly flashed on a screen. As subjects performed the task, their brain activity was recorded with electrodes placed on the scalp. In some cases, two target numbers appeared in the series less than one-half second apart – close enough to fall within the typical attentional blink window.
The researchers found that the three months of rigorous training in Vipassana meditation improved people’s ability to detect a second target within the half-second time window. In addition, though the ability to see the first target did not change, the mental training reduced the amount of brain activity associated with seeing the first target.
Because the subjects were not meditating during the test, their improvement suggests that prior training can cause lasting changes in how people allocate their mental resources.
As Richard Davidson says,
“Their previous practice of meditation is influencing their performance on this task. The conventional view is that attentional resources are limited. This shows that attention capabilities can be enhanced through learning.”
The finding that attention is a flexible skill opens up many possibilities. It provides further evidence that attention training is worth examining for attentional problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“When we raise ourselves through meditation to what unites us with the spirit, we quicken something within us that is eternal and unlimited by birth and death. Once we have experienced this eternal part in us, we can no longer doubt its existence. Meditation is thus the way to knowing and beholding the eternal, indestructible, essential center of our being.”
–Rudolf Steiner (Croatian-born Austrian Mystic, Occultist, Social Philosopher, Architect and Founder of Anthroposophy, 1861-1925)
“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
–Henry Miller (American Writer, 1891-1980)
“The path of spiritual attention is not easy, although anyone can make a beginning by trying to understand.”
— Sri Raghavan Iyer (Indian-born Prodigy, Rhodes Scholar, Academic, Philosopher, Theosophist, and, from 1965-1986, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Father of Pico Iyer, 1930-1995)
Lucid Dreaming
Stuart Wilde reprinted a very nice article on lucid dreaming on his website. I found the original here. Sadly the author remains anonymous, so I cannot give an attribution. Since there are some page references, I imagine that it is form a book, but not one in my fairly extensive library.
This is such a good article that I am reproducing it below. If the author contacts me I shall let you know who he or she is!
I have been collecting books and articles on lucid dreaming for many years, ever since an early teacher told me that according to some old teachings, learning the art of lucid dreaming is supposed to make it easier to control the transition at the time of death.
If that is too esoteric for you, then I should also mention that lucid dreaming is being explored as a treatment for nightmares.
One of the best books that I know of is by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, and it is now available for download here.
Here is the article, with a couple of links that I have added to clarify a couple of points.
If you have reached a stage at which it feels right to be working with your dreams, I hope that this will be of value to you.
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INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS LUCID DREAMING?
Lucid dreaming is a state in which the sleeper becomes alert and conscious that he or she is dreaming. The imagery in this state is reported to be more vivid than in non-lucid states, and it is difficult to distinguish between the dream and reality. The dreamer is able to control what is dreamed.
Lucid dreaming has formed the central core of virtually every shamanic and mystical practice throughout history. It allows the shaman to visit the spirit realms to gain healing power and insight. In the East, lucid dreaming has long been seen as a signpost on the way to enlightenment.
The Goldi shamans of Siberia guide dying or dead subjects through the realms of the otherworld through lucid dreams. Native Americans rely upon conscious dreaming for their vision quests, and consider dreams to be central to life itself, and the foundation of all spiritual matters.
The Australian Aborignes are the oldest lucid dreamers, but the Tibetan shamans have carried the process of lucid dreaming more exactly into the realm of mysticism. In 12th century Tibet there arose famous schools of Dream Masters who appeared to use lucid dreaming as a powerful method of meditation, which was reported to speed up the process of enlightenment. The Tibetan shaman was always "chosen" through a lucid dream, which transformed the dreamer into a new being.
Many Western subjects entering lucid dreaming for the first time report experiencing nothing comparable in the whole of their waking lives, feeling as if they had been radically changed by the event and mysteriously transformed. The essential purpose of lucid dreamwork is ultimately to wake up. Lucid dreaming helps us understand that we are just as asleep when we think we are awake, as we are in dreams.
PART ONE: Brain States
The sleep cycle is made up of numerous clearly definedstages. The first is a transitional state called the hypnagogic, which is the feeling of floating off, sometimes accompanied by vivid or psychedelic images. At this point the brain is in alpha, which then gives way to the slower and more rhythmic theta waves of light slumber. These are joined by rapid bursts of brain activity (spindles and K-complexes). About 20 minutes after the beginning of the sleep cycle, the large and relatively slow delta waves take over. This is the deep plunge into the void of sleep.
The quiet phase and the active phase are the two main stages of sleep, and can be distinguished by differences in biochemistry, physiology, psychology, and behavior. The quite phase occurs during deep sleep and is known as "S" sleep, as it is characterized by slow wave EEG. This Delta pattern takes up most of our sleeping time, thus the "S". It is the state of restful inactivity, your mind does little while you breathe slowly and deeply; your metabolic rate is at a minimum, and growth hormones are released facilitating restorative processes. When awakened from this state, people feel disoriented and rarely remember dreaming
However the second type of sleep pattern, REM (rapid eye movement) is the sleep state that pertains to lucid dreaming. REM sleep or "D" sleep is characterized by rapid eye movements and is often accompanied by dreams, thus the D. The first episode of REM or D sleep in adults lasts about ten minutes but can increase to as much as an hour throughout the night. During REM sleep your eyes move around rapidly, breathing is quick and irregular, and you dream vividly. During this activity, your body remains still, because it is temporarily paralyzed during REM sleep to prevent you from acting out your dreams.
The length of REM periods increase as the night proceeds, and the intervals between REM periods decrease. The first REM period usually lasts about ten minutes, after with the sleeper almost awakens before stage two. The cycle is then highly variable with each individual. Usually the complete REM/non REM cycle lasts about 90 minutes, with the dreamer experiencing four to five cycles of sleep each night. During the last two hours of sleep the REM has increased from ten minutes to as much as one hour.
Therefore "dreaming sleep" accounts for as much as 20 percent of our sleeping life. We spend as much as five years in dreamworlds, and experience over 150,000 dreams in a lifetime. During the last several decades, sleep researchers have discovered that for every 100 persons in REM sleep, over 80 percent will remember a dream if awakened. REM is clearly a unique brain state, though it is similar to the waking state in EEG activity. This may explain why dreams seem so real.
While other structures in the brain are involved in sleep, the neocortex is a major brain area involved in the production of dream images and experiences.
PART TWO: How to Induce a Lucid Dream
a) How to schedule your efforts for best results
Most lucid dreams happen in the late morning hours of sleep. If you normally sleep for eight hours, you will probably have six REM periods with the last half occurring in the last quarter of the night. The probability of having a lucid dream in the last two hours of sleep is more than twice as great as the probability of having a lucid dream in the previous six hours.
If you are serious about lucid dreaming, you should arrange at least one morning a week where you can stay in bed several hours longer than usual. If you can’t afford more time in bed, there is a simple secret to increasing your lucid dreaming that requires no extra sleep.
If you are serious about lucid dreaming, you should arrange at least one morning a week where you can stay in bed several hours longer than usual. If you can’t afford more time in bed, there is a simple secret to increasing your lucid dreaming that requires no extra sleep.
b) Techniques for Lucid Dreaming
Carlos Castaneda is instructed in one of h
is books that the best way to have a lucid dream is to shift the attention while dreaming. His teacher advises him to look for his hands or feet during the dream, which will help him remember that he is dreaming, and have access to using his dream body. The technique does work, although it may take many trials before a person actually remembers to look at the hands or feet while they are dreaming.
Training Protocol for Lucid Dreaming.
Should be practiced each night before going to sleep.
1. Play relaxing music on low volume. Lie down and close eyes. Lie on left side if comfortable, if not, gently touch forefinger to thumb of each hand and let hands rest by side.
2. Listen to tape and do some deep breathing (Noise Removal Breathing p.87 & Level One Breathing p.86).
3. Imagine and feel a point of white light in middle of forehead. Sense it radiating its light in front of the brain and directly in front of you.
4. Imagine and feel you are walking along a deserted beach at twilight. Notice the sky, moon, stars. As you walk, sense the point of white light on forehead, look down at hands and feet. Rotate hands and look at them in the light of the moon and stars.
Next, imagine you reach the entrance to an underground cave. Walk down seven stairs, reach out to open the door and look at hand. Walk into a cavernous room with many doors. Atmosphere of calmness and peace.
You will find yourself drawn to one of the doors. Know that your chosen door holds something of value behind it. As you walk towards the door, feel the point of light, and glance down at the hands and feet. When you open the door, look at your hand. Enter the next room and explore everything – the people or beings you find there may be metaphorical. You may talk to anyone. As you explore, occasionally glance at hands or feet and feel the point of white light on the forehead.
After exploring the room, return to the first room and the entrance that leads to the stairs. Open the door and walk to the beach. Bring awareness back to physical body, and slowly open eyes.
Preparation for Lucid Dreaming
1. Lie on left side if it feels comfortable as above.
2. Close eyes, deep breathing (or Level One Breathing).
3. Imagine point of white light in forehead.
4. As your awareness rests on this point, say to yourself silently: "I intend to have lucid dreams tonight. I recognize when I am dreaming and I am able to move freely in my dream body." (Can use any similar statement).
5. Continue to keep mental focus gently at point of light in the middle of forehead. When you feel yourself drifting off to sleep, let go of the focus.
You may change body position throughout the night. When you catch yourself dreaming, remember the point of light in forehead, and to look at hand or feet.
DREAM-INITIATED LUCID DREAMS (DILDs)
Critical State Testing: Ask yourself whether you are awake ordreaming throughout the day, so that you can get into the habit of asking the same question while you are dreaming. It is important to ask the question "Am I dreaming or not?" at least five to ten times a day, especially in situations that are dreamlike, or remind you of your dreams. It is also good to ask the question at bedtime. Don’t just automatically ask the question and mindlessly reply, "Obviously I’m awake," or you will do the same thing when you are actually dreaming. Look around for oddities that may indicate you are dreaming, and think back over the events of the past several minutes. If you had trouble remembering what happened, you may be dreaming.
State Testing: Don’t ask other people in your dream whetheryou are dreaming, because they will often reply that you’re not. The best way to check if you’re dreaming is trying to fly. Hop into the air, and if you stay there, you’re dreaming. You can also read something, look away and see if the text has distorted in any way when you look back.
Another method is to look twice at a digital watch, because they never behave correctly in dreams. Don’t use an analogue watch to check because they can tell dream time quite believably.
You may discover that any time you feel the genuine need to test reality, this in itself is proof enough that you’re dreaming, as when we’re awake we almost never seriously wonder whether we are in fact awake or dreaming.
Intention Technique:
1. Resolve to recognize dreaming – In the early hours of the morning, or if you wake in the night, clearly affirm your intention to remember to recognize the dream state.
2. Visualize yourself recognizing dreaming – Visualize yourself in dream situations that would normally make you realize you are dreaming.
3. Imagine carrying out an intended dream action – Resolve to carry out a particular action in a dream, e.g. see yourself flying, knowing that you are dreaming.
The Mild Technique – Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams
Prerequisites: It is necessary to have or develop the ability to remember future intentions using your mental capacity only, rather than relying on external reminders such as lists.
MILD TECHNIQUE
1. Set up dream recall – Before going to bed, resolve to wake up and recall dreams during each dream period throughout the night (or when you wake up in the morning).
2. Recall your dream – When you awake from a dream period, no matter what time it is, recall as many details as possible from your dream.
3. Focus your intent – While returning to sleep, concentrate on your intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming.
4. See yourself becoming lucid – At the same time, imagine that you are back in the dream from which you have just awakened, but this time you recognize that it is a dream. Find a dream sign (something odd or bizarre in a dream that alerts you to the fact that it’s a dream) and say to yourself, "I’m dreaming!" and continue your fantasy.
5. Repeat – Repeat steps 3 and 4 until your intention is set, then let yourself fall asleep. If your mind strays while you are falling asleep, repeat the procedure so that the last thing in your mind as you fall asleep is your intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming.
Commentary – If it takes you a long time to fall asleep while practicing this method, don’t worry. The longer you are awake, the more likely you are to have a lucid dream when you eventually return to sleep. This is because the longer you are awake, the more times you are likely to repeat the MILD technique, and therefore reinforce lucid dreaming. If you are a very heavy sleeper, you should get up after memorizing your dream and engage in ten to fifteen minutes of any activity involving full wakefulness, ie. turn on light, read a book etc. Write down the dream and read over it, ooking for dream signs.
WAKE-INITIATED LUCID DREAMS (WILDs)
This involves falling asleep consciously.
Attention on Hypnagogoc Imagery – This is the most common strategy for inducing WILDs and involves focusing on the hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset, e.g. flashes of light, geometric patterns.
HYPNAGOGIC IMAGERY TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely – Go through relaxation of every part of body, deep breathing etc.
2. Observe the visual images – Focus attention on the images that appear before the mind’s eye, watching how the images begin and end. Observe the images delicately, and allow them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold on to the images, just observe and let them pass. At first there will be a series of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images, which will eventually develop into scenes.
3. Enter the dream – When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try and enter the dream
scene. Be careful of too much involvement and too little attention, and don’t forget that you are dreaming now.
Commentary – Step 3 is the most difficult. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream, rather than trying to participate in it yourself. Another risk is that the world can seem so realistic in the dream that it is easy to lose lucidity. A suggested prevention against this is to resolve to carry out a particular action in the dream, so that if you momentarily lose lucidity, you may remember your intention to carry out the action and regain lucidity.
TIBETAN WHITE DOT TECHNIQUE
1. Before bed
A) Firmly resolve to recognize when you are dreaming.
B) Visualize in the throat chakra the syllable "ah", red in color and vividly radiant.
C) Mentally concentrate on the radiance of the "ah". Imagine that the radiance illuminates everything in the world and shows it as being unreal or dreamlike.
2. At dawn
A) Practice deep breathing several times, rounding out the abdomen as you inhale.
B) Resolve eleven times to comprehend the nature of the dream state.
C) Concentrate on a dot of pure white situated between the eyebrows.
D) Continue to concentrate on the dot until you find that you are dreaming.
Commentary
According to yogic doctrine, each chakra has a special sound or "seed syllable", which is "ah" for the throat chakra. This is viewed as the symbolic embodiment of Creative Sound, the power to bring a world (conceptual or otherwise) into being.
BLACK DOT TECHNIQUE
1. Before bed
A. Meditate on the white dot between your eyebrows.
2. At dawn
A. Practice deep breathing 21 times.
B. Make 21 resolutions to recognize the dream.
C. Then, concentrate your mind on a pill-sized black dot at the root chakra (base of genitals).
D. Continue to focus on the black dot until you find you are dreaming.
COUNT YOURSELF TO SLEEP TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely- While lying in bed, close eyes and relax completely. Breathe deeply, enjoy feeling of relaxation, let go of thoughts and worries.
2. Count to yourself while falling asleep – As you are drifting off to sleep, count to yourself,"1, I’m dreaming; 2, I’m dreaming…" and so on maintaining vigilance. You may start over after reaching 100.
3. Realize you are dreaming – After continuing this for some time you’ll be saying "I’m dreaming," and you will notice that you are dreaming.
Commentary – Saying the "I’m dreaming" isn’t strictly necessary, the counting works just as well to retain sufficient alertness in recognizing dreams for what they are. You can progress rapidly if you have someone watching, who can wake you up and ask you what number you reached if you appear to have fallen asleep. The observer can tell you are asleep by slow, pendular movements from side to side of theeyes, minor movements of lips, face, hands, feet and other muscles, and well as irregular breathing.
THE TWIN BODIES TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely – After awakening from a dream lie on back or right side with eyes closed. Tighten and relax whole body, breathe deeply etc. Let go of other thoughts and affirm intention to enter dream state consciously.
2. Focus on your body – Focus attention on each part of body and notice how it feels, watching for vibrations or other strange sensations. When these sensations arrive, following will be a complete paralysis of the body. You are then ready to leave the paralyzed physical body and enter the dream body.
3. Leave your body and enter the dream – As soon as the physical body is in a profound state of sleep paralysis, you are ready to go. This paralyzed physical body has a moveable twin, called your dream body. Imagine yourself in your dream body, rolling or floating out of your physical body. Jump, crawl or fall out of bed. Sink into the floor. Fly through the ceiling. This is lucid dreaming.
Commentary – As soon as you step out of bed, remember that you are in a dream body, and everything around you is a dream too, including the bed and the sleeping body you just hopped out of. You can verify whether you are floating in your astral body by using some tests:
1)Try reading the same passage from a book twice;
2)look at a digital watch, look away, then look back a few seconds later.
c) Preventing Premature Awakening
When the lucid dream is threatened by wakening, it is usefulto carry out some form of dream action as soon as the visual part of the dream begins to fade, e.g. listening to voices, music or your breathing; beginning or continuing a conversation; rubbing or opening your (dream) eyes; touching your dream hands and face; touching objects or being touched; flying. Another technique is to look at the ground.
DREAM SPINNING
1. Notice when the dream begins to fade – The visual sense is the first to go when a dream fades, with touch being the last. The dream may begin to lose color, clarity and realism, and take on a cartoon-like appearance. The light may grow dim or your vision weaker.
2. Spin as soon as the dream begins to fade – As soon as you notice the dream fading, stretch out your arms and spin like a top with your dream body. You can spin any way you like, but you must feel the vivid sensation of movement in your dream body, not just imagine it.
3. While spinning – remind yourself that the next thing you see will probably be a dream.
4. Test your state wherever you seem to arrive – Keep spinning until you find yourself in a stable world, you will either still be dreaming or will have awakened. Carefully test which state you are in, i.e.read a text, look at a digital watch.
Commentary – Frequently dream spinning creates a new procedure, or the just-faded dream may be regenerated. By repeatedly reminding yourself that you’re dreaming during the spinning, you can continue to be lucid in the new dream scene. If while you are dream spinning your hand hits the bed, don’t automatically think you’ve woken. If you’re spinning in your dream body, then it is a dream hand and a dream bed.
d) Lucid Dreaming for Problem Solving
1. Formulate your intention – Before you go to bed, think of a short phrase about what you want to dream about, e.g. "I want to visit San Francisco, or "I want to tell my friend I love her." Write down the phrase and perhaps illustrate it, and memorize the image. Underneath the target phrase, "When I dream of (the phrase) I will remember that I am dreaming."
2. Go to bed – Without doing anything else, turn out the light and go straight to bed.
3. Focus on your phrase and your intention to become lucid – Recall the phrase and picture, and visualize yourself dreaming lucidly about it. Meditate on the phrase and your intention to become lucid until you fall asleep, letting other thoughts pass.
4. Pursue your intention in the lucid dream – Carry out your intention while in a lucid dream. Ask what you want to ask, do what you want to do. Be sure to notice your feelings and be observant of all details in the dream.
5. Remember to awaken and recall the dream – When you achieve a satisfying answer in the dream, wake yourself up by going back to your dream bed, blinking or otherwise withdrawing your attention from the dream. Immediately write down at least the part of your dream that includes the solution. Even if you don’t think your question was answered, still write the dream down. You may find on reflection that the answer was hidden in your dream and you didn’t realize it at the time.
Lucid Dreaming to Overcome Nightmares
It is useful to confront threatening characters in a dream or nightmare, and
turn it into a lucid dream by beginning your own dialogue with them. You could ask the following:
"Who are you?"
"Who am I?"
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you acting the way you are?"
"What do you have to tell me?"
"Why is this happening?"
"What do you want from me?"
"What questions do you have to ask me?"
"What do I most need to know?"
"What can I do for you?"
"What can you do for me?"
e) Conversing with Dream Characters
1. Practice imaginary dialogues in the waking state – Chose a recent dream in which you had an unpleasant encounter with a dream character. Visualize yourself talking to them, and initiated a dialogue using the above questions or any of your own. Don’t let critical thoughts interrupt the flow, such as "I’m just making this up," or "This is silly." Terminate the dialogue when it runs out of energy or when you have your resolution. Evaluate what you did right or would do differently next time.
2. Set your intention – Set the goal for yourself that the next time you have a disturbing encounter with a dream character, you will become lucid and engage the character in dialogue.
3. Converse with problem dream figures – When you encounter anyone with whom you have a conflict, ask yourself whether or not you are dreaming. If you find that you are, stay and face the character, and begin a dialogue with one of the opening questions above. Listen to the character’s responses and try and address their problems as well as your own. See if you can make friends or reach a resolution. Wake yourself up while you still remember the dream clearly and write it down.
4. Evaluate the dialogue – Ask yourself if you achieved the best result you could, or how you could improve it next time.
PART THREE: COMMON QUESTIONS ON LUCID DREAMING
Q:If dreams are messages from the unconscious mind, will consciously controlling dreams interfere with this important process, and deprive me of the benefits of dream interpretation?
A: Dreams are not letters from the unconscious mind, but experiences created through the interactions of the unconscious and conscious mind. More info from the unconscious is available to us in dreams, however if dreams were the exclusive realm of the unconscious, we wouldn’t remember them. You shouldn’t always be conscious in dreams any more than you should always be conscious of what you are doing in waking life. However, if your actions are taking you in the wrong direction (in dreaming or waking), you should be able to "wake up" to what you are doing wrong and consciously redirect your approach.
As for the benefits of dream interpretation, lucid dreams can be examined as fruitfully as non-lucid dreams. Lucid dreamers can even interpret their dreams while they are happening.
Q: Will the efforts of learning lucid dreaming lead to sleep loss, and will I be more tired from being awake in my dreams?
A: Dreaming lucidly is as restful as dreaming non-lucidly. Lucid dreams are often positive experiences and leave you feeling more invigorated. How tired you feel depends on what you did in the dream. You should practice lucid dreaming when you have the time and energy to devote to the task. If you are too busy to allot more time to sleeping, or to sacrifice any of the sleep you are getting, it’s probably not a good idea to work on lucid dreaming right now. Lucid dreaming requires good sleep and mental energy for concentration. Once you learn the techniques, you should reach a point where you can have lucid dreams whenever you wish just by reminding yourself to do so.
Q: Will practicing lucid dreaming affect my psychotherapy?
A: Lucid dreaming can be instrumental in psychotherapy, however if you are in psychotherapy and want to experiment with lucid dreaming, talk it over with your therapist. Make sure your therapist is well-informed on the subject of lucid dreaming, and understands its functions and implications.
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“Dreams are real while they are happening. Can we say any more about life?”
–Havelock Elis (English Psychologist, 1859-1939)
“Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself.”
–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Exponent of Jnana Yoga and Advaita Doctrine, 1897-1981)
“We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” {The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. i}
–WIlliam Shakespeare (English Poet and Dramatist, 1564-1616)
Does the Spinal Cord Think?
In recent years we have become very interested in the ever-increasing evidence there are large complex neural networks outside the brain and autonomic nervous system. The main ones are in the intestine and the heart. These systems are so complex and well organized that some people have talked about us having a “brain” in the heart and another in the intestine. This may be a bit of an over-statement. For instance the cerebellum at the back of the brain is large and highly complex, but is so arranged that it probably cannot generate conscious experience. That particular trick needs a cerebral cortex that self-organizes, recruits new systems when necessary for some particular task and generates vast oscillations that are modulated by genes and the environment.
Now new research has shown that the spinal cord has some of those same properties that we associate with the cerebral cortex. This groundbreaking work has just been published in the journal Science, and the entire paper is available here.
So why the excitement and interest? It often astonishes me how many students who come to my lectures seem not to have a curiosity gene. And there is so much about which we should be curious. Despite the billions spent on research there is still a great deal about the human body that is not understood at all. Not small esoteric things, but huge questions.
For instance how can some people think and communicate even if most of the brain is destroyed by disease? On the other hand some people are incapacitated by the smallest lesion. I’ve taught neurology for years, in particular the art of neurological examination. I was trained by some of the best in the world, so I know how to look for subtle neurological signs. Yet I’ve seen a great many inexplicable things: I saw someone come to autopsy who had no neurological signs, but had a tumor occupying more than half of the dominant hemisphere of the brain.
Here’s another puzzle: we don’t know how humans are able to move. Our muscles are controlled by thousands of nerve cells in the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system. This entire complex system must work as a whole in order to successfully generate a single motion. Yet how quickly do most children learn to stand and walk. The new research has shown that the spinal cord is not a passive signal conductor, but has instead shown that spinal neurons, while engaged in the network activity underlying movements, show irregular firing patterns similar to those seen in the cerebral cortex. Even if we repeat a certain motion with high accuracy, the nerve cells involved never repeat their activity patterns. Just the same as happens in the cerebral cortex.
This is yet more evidence to suggest that “thinking” does not only go on in the brain. It makes sense to think of the major systems – heart, intestine and spine – as key components of the subliminal, pre-conscious mind. Some people like the term subconscious, but that runs into the confusing problem of mixing up the terms subconscious and unconscious.
I talk about some of these differences and how to work these different parts of yourself in the book and CD series Healing, Meaning and Purpose.
Chiropractors have been telling us for years that the spinal cord is a lot more than just a relay system. It looks as if they may have been correct.
If you are interested in following up on my comments about what it takes for a neural network to generate conscious experiences, you may be interested in having a look at my review of the excellent new book Rhythms of the Brain by Gyorgy Buzsáki. and
Diseases of Discipleship
You will not find them listed on WebMD, but “Diseases of Discipleship” are nonetheless very real. I have mentioned them in Healing Meaning and Purpose and also here. They are the result of sudden access to spiritual energies that can upset the balance of the body, mind and spirit. The great value of having a teacher is to help you balance and work with these energies without being harmed by them.
Several of my own teachers talked a lot about these diseases of discipleship, but I would particularly like to single out Douglas Baker and the writings of Roberto Assagioli, Del Pe, Torkom Saraydarian, Stan Grof and Alice Bailey.
I have also had a great deal of experience with people undergoing spiritual crises. Many have been referred to me by priests, clergy and intuitives, because many of the individuals thought that they were “going crazy,” and some had ben given psychiatric diagnoses. That extensive experience has helped me and some of my students to describe some of the “symptoms” in more detail.
Roberto Assagioli identified five critical points where problems may arise:
- Just before spiritual awakening begins
- Crises caused by spiritual awakening
- Reactions to spiritual awakening
- Phases of the process of transmutation
- The “Dark Night of the Soul”
Today I am just going to focus on the crises caused by spiritual awakening, because a great many people are experiencing them at the moment.
Here are some of the more common signs and symptoms include:
- Visual disturbances
- Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
- Paradoxically they often also find a raised pain threshold
- Increased metabolic rate, which may cause a slight increase in body temperature and a little weight loss
- Variable libido: some people lose all interest in sex, but most experience an increase in sexual desire, which can take them and any partners by surprise
- Disturbances in circadian rhythms
- Disturbances in thyroid and adrenal function: the thyroid often becomes slightly – or sometimes more than slightly – overactive and the adrenal glands slightly less responsive to stimulation
- Hypoglycemia
- Hypertension
- Chronic fatigue
- Anxiety and a feeling of “butterflies” in the region of the solar plexus
- Inexplicable sensations roughly corresponding to the channels identified in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine
- Irregular breathing patterns, usually hyperventilation
- Something that feels like electricity under the tongue and under the palate
- Crying for no readily apparent reason
- As peoples’ consciousness rises, it is quite common to experience “Synesthesia” in which senses overlap: people may taste sounds, feel colors and “hear and see” with different parts of the body
- Psychic abilities often begin to appear: clairvoyance, clairaudience, spiritual intuition and the ability to heal
- Many begin to feel and see their own Inner Light and the Inner Light of other people
Not everyone gets all of these symptoms and they may come and go for a while. Some people don’t get any at all, but they are unusual. There are two books by Hazel Courteney that detail some of what happened to her, and they are well worth a read.
It is important to emphasize that all of these signs and symptoms can also be caused by illnesses. So although most people who are going through all this want to avoid doctors, it is a very good idea to ensure that everything is okay. I once saw someone who had been told that she was having a kundalini experience, even though she did not have any of the usual features. She became very unwell, but felt much better when an insulin-producing tumor was removed from her pancreas.
The most important thing is to help people remain grounded. I have seen many people become extremely grandiose and even fanatical after going through a rapid spiritual awakening. It is also important to ensure that any physical symptoms – such as thyroid or blood pressure problems – do not continue unchecked.
Helping people who are going through spiritual change or crisis needs the help of a person or persons who understand physical and psychological problems, as well as being some way along the path of spiritual development. By “crisis” I do not mean crisis of faith, but a critical turning point in an individual’s personal development.
There are plenty of good ways of grounding using some physical, psychological and subtle system exercises. I have dozens of excellent techniques that I can publish if you are interested. Sometimes it is also a good idea to eat some heavy food.
It can be very helpful to get away form other people for a while. This doesn’t mean becoming a monk or nun, but just to avoid a bad case of people poisoning. In their overly sensitive state they can pick up a lot of negative things from the people around them. I have known a good many people who would begin to experience all the physical and psychological symptoms of the people around them.
Once we have confirmed that the person does not have all this as a result of thyroid disease or anxiety, it is essential to show them what is going on and the best way to approach and conceptualize it.
Next we help people to control some of the impulses that can otherwise swamp them. One of the many reasons for development of the sophisticated mind control techniques developed by Tibetan Buddhism was to help people watch their spiritual unfoldment without being overwhelmed by it.
We also try to help people to transmute psychological energies so that they can be used constructively.
Everybody is different, but in some people acupuncture, qigong, Reiki and homeopathy have all been helpful. Several of the flower essences can be very useful, in particular:
Vervain
Star Tulip
White Yarrow
Pink Yarrow
Every expert that I know in the field of spiritual development agrees with my observation that there are currently more people having major spiritual changes than ever before. It is essential for us all to know how to protect, support and birth them.
“To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing in the world of forms – truth, love, purity and beauty – this is the sole game that has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.”
–Meher Baba (Indian Spiritual Teacher who, from July 1925 maintained Silence, 1894-1969)
“You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.”
–Jalal al-Din Rumi (Afghan Sufi Poet, 1207-1273)
“Life is a series of awakenings.”
–Sri Swami Sivananda (Indian Physician and Spiritual Teacher, 1887-1963)
“What we usually call human evolution is the awakening of the Divine Nature within us.”
–“Peace Pilgrim” (a.k.a. Mildred Norman, American Peace Activist, 1908-1981)
Charles Tart's Library
If you are at all interested in altered states of consciousness, transpersonal psychology, parapsychology or spirituality, you will find a great many useful and interesting papers written by Professor Charles Tart.
I was smitten by his work when I read his classic book Altered States of Consciousness in 1969, and he reamins one of the most respected figures in these fields
I have followed his work closely ever since, and his library of free articles is a treasure trove containing papers written between 1963 and 2006.
Charlie is currently a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California, as well as Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Davis campus of the University of California.
I would like to thank him and many publishers for making all this material freely available.
Separation and Integration
“The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal.”
–A Course in Miracles (Book of Spiritual Principles Scribed by Dr. Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1975, and First Published in 1976)
Many of us feel that we have lost or forgotten something important and it nags at us. In the Matrix, Morpheus tries to capture this when he says, “There is a splinter in your mind.”
What we have forgotten is the hidden secret not only to who we are but also to what we may become.
There are hundreds of thousands of books, websites, classes, groups and, of course, religions that all say that they have an answer to those two questions. And I tend to believe that they probably all do. But each has only a part of the puzzle.
Integrated Medicine was always designed to provide answers synthesized from the very best of what is already available.
I am always being asked whether Integrated Medicine is an approach toward health and wellness, a method of achieving personal growth and development or some form of holistic treatment?
The answer is “Yes!”
The goal is not to replace other forms of self-care or treatment, but to integrate and enhance them. The reason for using the term “Integrated,” and why it is a little different from Integrative or Integral medicine, is that it aims to:
- Integrate an individual’s current health and wellness practices into a combined whole
- Integrate all the parts of a person, for the quotation is true: the role of the ego is to separate itself from the rest of the Universe, and healing come from the Source: your Informational Matrix, your Inner Light or Soul
- Integrate healing methods that will ensure that each aspect of you being is addressed and respected so that the healing can flow. Not only of your body, but of your mind, relationships, the planet, society, subtle systems and your spirituality
- Integrate your views about the nature of reality: healing is not simply a matter of fixing a physical machine. In any case, this is not always possible. The objective is not to “use” methods and insights to heal the body. It is rather to ask that your Overself or Higher Self teach you the right perception of your body and your mind. That is why I am always recommending that the first thing that you can do for yourself is to develop your intuition so that it provides a delicate counterbalance to your ability to reason. If you have ever been to a gym, you know the importance of exercising not just your bicep muscle, but your triceps muscle as well. One without the other will make you lopsided. So it is with intellect and intuition.
- Integrate the personal you with something beyond yourself. The ultimate aim of Integrated Medicine is not simply to stay well, but to return to Wholeness
And all have been done already with tens of tousands of people around the globe.
Will you be next?
“To have a curable illness and to leave it untreated except for prayer is like sticking your hand in a fire and asking God to remove the flame.”
— Unknown Author (Sometimes attributed to “Sandra L. Douglas”)
"A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
–Abraham Lincoln (American Statesman and, from 1861-1865, the 16th President of the United States, 1809-1865)
“In the integral Yoga, the integral life down to even the smallest detail has to be transformed, to become Divine.”
— The Mother of Pondicherry (a.k.a. Mirra Alfassa, French-born Indian Spiritual Teacher, 1878-1973)
Robert Anton Wilson R.I.P.
The American writer, humorist, philosopher, psychologist and futurologist Robert Anton Wilson finally passed last Thursday. I say "finally" because he has suffered for some time with post-polio syndrome that caused a bad fall last year. Since then he had required continuous medical care.
I never met him, but felt that I got to know him in the thirty some years since I first picked up a copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy which he co-authored with Robert Shea. Advertised as "a fairy tale for paranoids," it was very funny in parts, using humor to examine American paranoia about conspiracies. Since then I read more than twenty of his books and there is no doubt that some of his ideas influenced not just me, but a generation of people who were interested in thinking outside that famous box.
Even thirty years later, one of his best and most influential books was Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati in which he examined everything from The 23 Enigma (the number 23 appears more often in "random" number series than any other and is said to have hundreds of odd correlations, from the number of human chromosome pairs to the Bible), leprechauns, Mr. Spock’s ears, Discordianism, Sufism, Futurology, Zen Buddhism, Dennis and Terence McKenna, the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and G.I. Gurdjieff, the Illuminati and Freemasons, Yoga, and other esoteric or counterculture philosophies. He also advocated Timothy Leary’s eight circuit model of consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic programming.
"RAW" as he was affectionally known, also introduced millions of people to the idea that consciousness can affect the material world.
Some people found some of his writing difficult, simply because he was always trying to force people to make new associations and to see things differently. And few people would agree with absolutely everything that he said. Because he did not want them to: he wanted to make people think and to develop their intuition.
I shall always be grateful for RAW’s influence, and I hope that he enjoys the next stage of his journey.
