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Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 7:24 am
by Moth
Anyone have any experience with this? If I meditate in bed and fall asleep sometimes I have the experience of being in my room, outside of my body. While I'm in this state I can move through the house, fly, float through walls, etc. It's pretty fun but it usually only lasts a few minutes, then I wake up.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 7:45 am
by Kenshou
Never had an "OBE" type experience, but I naturally get lucid dreams now and again, more commonly when I've been meditating more, it seems. I've found myself spontaneously meditating in dreams sometimes.
When I have lucid dreams, I often find myself jumping around in slow motion. Though I may be aware of the situation, for whatever reason I just don't consider doing anything else. Pretty silly.
And relatedly I do get sleep paralysis sometimes (
*), but much less lately. A pretty weird way to get up in the morning.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 10:53 am
by Moggalana
Hi Moth,
you might find this interesting:
http://www.mengstupiditis.com/2009/05/m ... ongey.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
My own dreams often seem to be in a state of 'semi-lucidity', meaning that 'something' is watching the dream but not completely lucid about the fact that it's just a dream. There was, however, one dream where I became completely aware of the fact that I was just dreaming, and that feeling was accompanied by great joy and bliss. It was quite an interesting experience. I had some freedom of choice but could not control the dream state fully. For example, my dream body was able to walk through a glass door but got stuck while trying to walk through a concrete wall. I could jump into the air and hover a couple of meters above the ground but got pulled back when I was trying to really fly away.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:20 am
by effort
how about the feeling of falling after get paralyzed before fall asleep? you experiment that?
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 4:36 pm
by octathlon
I used to have them every single night, for years. I got sick of it and finally managed to make it stop. The lucid dreams--"waking up" during a dream-- are OK (often truely blissful!) if you keep it going as a dream (if you look too closely the dream disappears and you are left in the state that people call OBE; if you get caught up in the dream it turns back into a normal non-lucid dream). What I really got sick of was every time as I would fall asleep, a part of my mind stayed "awake" and brought on the "OBE" state which I usually found very unpleasant.
Lately I have been wondering about something. [crazy alert] Since then (as far as I remember) I always have a song or tune running through my mind, all the time except when I am concentrating on something else like working, talking, reading, etc. If I am just sitting around, or taking a walk, it is there, and I have to deliberately concentrate on something else to turn it off. This drives me crazy. What I am wondering is, is this the way I managed to stop the "OBE" stuff? I wonder if this constant mental process is keeping that mental state at bay... Or could it be a form of OCD? Other than the mental jukebox I have no other issues of that kind [/crazy alert].
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 4:43 pm
by octathlon
Moggalana wrote:My own dreams often seem to be in a state of 'semi-lucidity', meaning that 'something' is watching the dream but not completely lucid about the fact that it's just a dream. There was, however, one dream where I became completely aware of the fact that I was just dreaming, and that feeling was accompanied by great joy and bliss. It was quite an interesting experience. I had some freedom of choice but could not control the dream state fully. For example, my dream body was able to walk through a glass door but got stuck while trying to walk through a concrete wall. I could jump into the air and hover a couple of meters above the ground but got pulled back when I was trying to really fly away.
You probably got stuck in the concrete wall because a thought of doubt occurred to you, like "wait, I can't go through concrete".
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 5:04 pm
by Moggalana
octathlon wrote:
You probably got stuck in the concrete wall because a thought of doubt occurred to you, like "wait, I can't go through concrete".
Yeah, probably. "Much to learn you still have"
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 5:11 pm
by Anicca
Moggalana wrote:There was, however, one dream where I became completely aware of the fact that I was just dreaming, and that feeling was accompanied by great joy and bliss. It was quite an interesting experience. I had some freedom of choice but could not control the dream state fully.
Decades ago I read in the Second Ring of Power by Carlos Casteneda:
Finding your hands in your dreams is the first pointer; then the exercise of paying attention is elongated to finding objects, looking for specific features, such as buildings, streets and so on. From there the jump is to dream about specific places at specific times of the day. The final stage is drawing the attention of the nagual to focus on the total self.
That final stage is usually ushered in by a dream that many of us have had at one time or another, in which one is looking at oneself sleeping in bed. By the time a sorcerer has had such a dream, his attention has been developed to such a degree that instead of waking himself up, as most of us would do in a similar situation, he turns on his heels and engages himself in activity, as if he were acting in the world of everyday life.
From that moment on there is a breakage, a division of sorts in the otherwise unified personality. The result of engaging the attention of the nagual and developing it to the height and sophistication of our daily attention of the world is the other self, an identical being as oneself, but made in dreaming .
There are no definite standard steps for reaching that double, as there are no definite steps for us to reach our daily awareness. We simply do it by practicing. In the act of engaging our attention of the nagual , we find the steps. Practice dreaming without letting your fears make it into an encumbering production.
It was all good fun and blissful in its way, but nothing at all like the bliss of practicing and putting into application the Eightfold Path!
metta
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 5:46 pm
by octathlon
Moth wrote:Anyone have any experience with this? If I meditate in bed and fall asleep sometimes I have the experience of being in my room, outside of my body. While I'm in this state I can move through the house, fly, float through walls, etc. It's pretty fun but it usually only lasts a few minutes, then I wake up.
Moth,
Since you are experiencing this a lot, and we are in the Lounge, I have a few suggestions (I'm just curious to compare experiences). When this happens, look around very closely at your room. Do you notice that it isn't really your room? There will be differences, like furniture looks different or is in a different place, etc. -- a mental projection that you are just interpreting to be your actual room, not an "out of body" travel, but a lucid dream.
Another thing is, does it seem kind of dark in your room and dim/hard to see when you have these? if you work up enough "energy" before initiating this (I know this sounds new-agey, but I'm not sure how to describe it), you can have much more intense and vivid lucid dreams than that.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:03 pm
by Anicca
octathlon wrote:(I know this sounds new-agey, but I'm not sure how to describe it)
psuedo-Buddhist - not a Theravadin site - but better than Don Juan - maybe?
Dream Yoga
metta
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:17 pm
by octathlon
Anicca wrote:octathlon wrote:(I know this sounds new-agey, but I'm not sure how to describe it)
psuedo-Buddhist - not a Theravadin site - but better than Don Juan - maybe?
Dream Yoga
metta
Well anyway, I didn't seek out to have those experiences, they happened for whatever reason. They were interesting and they had both positive and negative aspects. And that's about it.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:31 am
by Moth
octathlon wrote:Since you are experiencing this a lot, and we are in the Lounge, I have a few suggestions (I'm just curious to compare experiences). When this happens, look around very closely at your room. Do you notice that it isn't really your room? There will be differences, like furniture looks different or is in a different place, etc. -- a mental projection that you are just interpreting to be your actual room, not an "out of body" travel, but a lucid dream.
Another thing is, does it seem kind of dark in your room and dim/hard to see when you have these? if you work up enough "energy" before initiating this (I know this sounds new-agey, but I'm not sure how to describe it), you can have much more intense and vivid lucid dreams than that.
Thank you for the tip, I will experiment with it next time I become lucid. When I'm in that state I perceive it as if it actually were my room, but I have not tried to really examine its features--I'm always so excited about the whole experience
that I forget to really investigate it. The other night it happened again and I went to my desk and wrote something down on a piece of paper I had left out before going to bed. When I checked it in the morning it was blank
.
I want to elaborate on my question. Do you guys/girls think that this sort of thing can beneficial it terms of practicing the Dhamma? I've yet to read any Suttas that mention dreams but I always found them to be quite insightful.
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:33 am
by Kim OHara
Moth wrote:I want to elaborate on my question. Do you guys/girls think that this sort of thing can beneficial it terms of practicing the Dhamma? I've yet to read any Suttas that mention dreams but I always found them to be quite insightful.
Hi, Moth,
All the expert advice (sangha, experienced meditators) is that this sort of stuff is never very helpful and can become a real distraction to further progress on the path, and my (limited) experience and knowledge supports that. Octathlon's attitude strikes me as about right: "Well anyway, I didn't seek out to have those experiences, they happened for whatever reason. They were interesting and they had both positive and negative aspects. And that's about it."
If you search DW you can probably find earlier threads that are relevant. Try searching on "OBE" "supernormal" "lucid dreaming" etc.
Kim
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 8:13 pm
by Zach1
Lucid dreaming is relatively easy to do. Here's link if you don't already know how to become lucid
http://www.dreamviews.com/section/induc ... niques-12/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
From my experience it has been very insightful. Everyone dreams whats wrong with being aware in them?
Re: Lucid Dreaming/OBEs
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:00 pm
by lojong1
Moth wrote: Do you think that this sort of thing can beneficial it terms of practicing the Dhamma?
Only if you are practicing. It sounds fun and sporty so far. Try meditating in your dream--it's a great way to wake up.