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Question from Anton: I just read your article on the web where you talk a lot about astralplane, lucid dreams and OBE. Can you identify and clearly articulate the difference between lucid dreaming and astral projecting? If not, why would one use different terms? Also if you are familiar with gates of dreaming concept by Castaneda, do you think that the state when you are dreaming and able to look at your body (which is meant to arrive to the 3rd gate) would be OBE? What is not clear then is how it’s possible to never come to the first 2 gates and arrive to the 3rd at once in case dreaming and astral projecting is the same or very close?
I think the main difference is that in a normal dream you are experiencing an environment you are creating through subconscious projection, in lucid dreams you are experiencing the reality that you are creating through conscious projection, while in astral projection you are in an environment that is already ‘there’, a plane that exists that you are projecting into. As far as the third gate, being in your bedroom or seeing yourself asleep, I think this is where these two experiences overlap. I go with the name etheric projection but I think the etheric body and the ‘dream body’ as synonymous. The etheric itself environment is an overlap of the physical and astral planes, so it is ‘already there’ but to whatever degree it is modified by your own perceptions and potential astral influences too.
I see the first two gates of dreaming as training exercises. Of course you can go to gate three or beyond first either intentionally or spontaneously, but without learning stability and concentration first these experiences will probably be instable and short-lived. For myself by the time I got to this stage I had already learned a lot of stability techniques and was able to prolong my first experience for a longer time and transition to the astral plane too.
Looking at your hands seems extra powerful as a lucid dreaming and stability technique and that’s why it was chosen I think, though there are other ways. (Incidentally, I had my first lucid dream this way.) Don Juan also mentions being able to wake up in your dreams is a ’safety valve’ for indulgence in later experiences, allowing you to return and stop your dreaming or projecting in any circumstance. I once had a lucid dream that went for so long I eventually decided to wake up to make sure I could!
So ‘dreaming’ and ‘projecting’ are indeed very close, pretty much the same thing in many respects, but terms that can be used to better distinguish different circumstances of consciousness, both internally and externally. In another sense you could say it’s the difference between fantasy and reality, or between creativity and exploration.
Have you heard the latest song by Franz Ferdinand called ‘Lucid Dreams’?
Pretty cool! And here’s the Lucid Dreams lyrics:
Sweep slides on my stereo
Short wave ’round my rodeo
Became from that of Savalon
But I’m flying to Istanbul
Oh so why don’t you meet me there?
There is no nation of you
There is no nation of me
Our only nation lives in Lucid Dreams
Lucid Dreams
I’m living in lucid dreams
I’m living on short based dreams tonight
I’ll dial Alexandria
If you dial into Ithaca
South fisher, German bite
I skate on the world tonight
Oh so why don’t you come along?
There is no nation of you
There is no nation of me
Our only nation lives in Lucid Dreams
Lucid Dreams
I’m living in lucid dreams
I’m living on short based dreams tonight
I’m gonna give my aimless love
My angry heart
My desire
I woke with wings from lucid dreams
I knew the reason I felt hollow
Was it I may never know
If there is some great truth or not
There is no nation of you
There is no nation of me
Our only nation lives in Lucid Dreams
Lucid Dreams
I’m living in lucid dreams
I’m living in a short wave stream tonight
Lucid dreams
I’m living on lucid dreams
Now there is just plain mystery
THC, the active ingredient of cannibus/marijuana, certainly has a definite affect on one’s dreaming. However, insomuch as THC itself affects different people in different ways, the effect of one’s dreaming will vary from individual to individual too. Some scientific studies have shown that REM periods are reduced or suppressed by THC, and though unfortunately these are quite old, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence supporting this too. While some people may experience vivid dreams shortly after use, generally, most people (again, not all) who smoke or ingest pot find that they have more trouble remembering their dreams, or even a complete lack of dream recall.
One likely cause of this is that THC builds up in the Hippocampus area of the brain, which has been identified as relating to dream interpretation and short-term memory, resulting in less dreaming or less dreamingmemory. How quickly this happens, whether with one-time or regular use, is probably different for everyone, though with abstinence, full capacity generally returns in about a week. Personally I don’t go near pot any more, not because I have anything against it, but because I enjoy my dreaming far more. So for some of us it may come to a choice between the two.
When it comes to lucid dreaming, obviously having an impairment of one’s dreamingmemory is going to be a bit of a problem, since memory is one of the foundations of lucidity. But for those who want to both smoke marijuana and lucid dream, it may be a worth trying some other herbs to counteract this undesirable side effect… A herbal tea before bedtime of Mugwort (known to increase the vividness of dreams) and Ginko Biloba (known to improve memory) may prove beneficial. In fact, I would recommend trying this whether you smoke or not! These two common herbs will give a nice boost to your dreaming.
Hope this helps! If you want to read more details on studies of THC on REM, check this forum thread (not exactly light reading though.)
A few years ago I had the experience of dreaming in Zen! For those unfamiliar with Zen stories, they are often short but insightful tales about experiences that have helped people realize the truth… (I recommend Zen Flesh Zen Bones by Alan Watts, a great collection of Zen stories.)
But I was fortunate enough to bring this one back from the dream world! I saw it from the eyes of the characters and third person simultaneously, but here is my attempt at a written version… Enjoy!
…A travelling zen monk was passing through a city one day, when he was approached by one of the locals seeking his help. There had been a number of deaths in the city by poisoning recently, and the man knew of the particular shopkeeper responsible for supplying it. He was, however, too afraid to approach the authorities for fear he might be next. The monk assured the man that he would look into it, asks directions to the shop and proceeds to it.
Upon entering the shop, he approaches the counter and politely says “I require one dose of your finest poison thankyou.” The shopkeeper is visibly surprised at such a request from a monk, but is not in the business of asking questions, and after all, this could be a disguised assassin who it would not be wise to refuse. He recovers his composure, bends down under the counter and shortly produces a small vial for examination.
The monk studies the vial, and satisfactorily pronounces, “Yes, that should suffice for everyone.” The shopkeeper is again taken aback, and says quite seriously, “Sir, I do not think you understand. As you asked, this dose is for one person. It is not sufficient for more.” The monk smiles and replies, “No, it will certainly suffice. For you see, I intend to take this myself tonight… and tomorrow, everyone else will be dead.”
At which, the shopkeeper is enlightened, and never sells poison again…
Came across this one awhile ago… Wish I could remember where now. But it still cracks me up! And it makes the point so well too… how can we be taught to so flippantly ignore or devalue a huge portion of our inner experience? Should we continue to let the uninformed beliefs of society about dreaming influence the way in which we treat our private or public dreams? If that is considered ‘normal’, I’d rather be considered a raving lunatic! It seems a little backwards though, don’t you think..? Perhaps as this comic satirically suggests, the way in which people ‘usually’ treat dreams is just a little wacko.. At the very least, we might want to know a little more about what we’ve been experiencing in the period we know as ’sleep’ before we write it off. Well, that’s what I think anyways.
What are currently recognized as dreaming periods are the REM (rapid eye movement) portions of sleep. What is generally not known however is that we dream and have other experiences at deeper levels of the psyche that aren’t usually fully consciously remembered. Some of these are formless or imageless interactions. The information and experiences we have on these levels is translated into dream imagery at levels closer to our waking consciousness, and this is what is recognized as REM dreaming.
In other words, we still dream in non-REM periods, but these dreams are trickier to remember directly the deeper we go, because there the information we receive is usually too vast for our conscious minds to contain. So we translate it in symbolic form through the image-laden medium of REM dreams. And yet, as we stretch our dreaming attention and conscious capacity, we are more likely to remember more information from these levels, which is more akin to a direct knowing.
The confusion that REM periods and dreaming periods are exactly synonymous is one that has come about through the scientific study of dreaming from outside observation. But by recognizing that REM is associated with the scanning of dream imagery, it is easier to see that those non-REM periods of sleep are not necessarily ones of ‘unconsciousness’ but quite the opposite, they are periods of superconscious activity that escape our conscious focus, imageless ‘dreams’ of a magnitude that is mind-blowing to glimpse!
Lucid Dreams can happen whenever regular dreams happen. When we sleep we go through a number of different cycle of consciousness, delving deep into our psyche and ‘resurfacing’ a number of times. There are typically around four or five major dream periods in a single night, approximately an hour and a half apart, but getting close together as the night progresses. Each period can contain multiple dreams, so there is plenty of opportunity to make the most of our dreams.
When we start training our dream recall, we can find ourselves becoming more conscious and even waking up in the periods in between cycles of sleep, where before we were unaware. This gives us an excellent opportunity to record dreams we would otherwise forget, furthering our dreamingmemory, but not just that… It helps us to become lucid because we are becoming conscious at just the times which are most conducive to lucid dreaming!
Lucid dreams usually occur at around these times because we are far closer to our waking consciousness and able to activate our conscious mind more easily. Not only may we find ourselves becoming aware or fully lucid just prior to waking in these periods, they are also the times in which lucid dream induction can be the most effective. With practice you can re-enter the dream you just had consciously or instigate a new lucid dream through your intention, with little or no break in consciousness as you do so!
Recently I’ve been getting back into a course I bought a while ago but have just been plain too busy to read… and it’s really pretty cool.
It’s a six week course on training your psychic abilities by highly successful self development author Bradley Thompson. He’s also a widely respected scientist, and as far as he’s concerned, psychic abilities are just another branch of science that we don’t fully understand yet.
Well, as far as we’re both concerned, the truth is we’re all ‘psychic’, we all have these gifts - we simply need to learn how to use them. And fortunately, we we don’t have to understand them in ’scientific terms’ to do so. It’s just.. how often do we get it explained to us in a simple, understandable way that we can actually *use*?
To me that’s what makes this course pretty good, it doesn’t stuff you round with big words, complex formulas or ridiculous practices. It focuses on your psychic development, not someone elses theories.
So why not check this out for yourself? To begin with, there’s a free mini-course for anyone interested in finding out more about their psychic potential here.
It’s actually quite tricky to use words to describe the sense of wonder that comes with a fully lucid dream… Well, let me try to explain anyway…
Once you’re lucid, the whole feeling and experience of your dream reality changes. All the colours become bright and vivid, and the sounds become crisp and clear. Both your mind and body are buzzing with inspiration and energy, and your dream world has amazing detail and clarity! Everything is as real as waking life, or more so.. The transformation is beautiful and instantaneous… The feeling of a lucid dream is nothing short of exciting, empowering and envigorating all at once!
Of course, not all lucid dreams are like this, the quality of lucidity varies, especially for beginners. But the great things is, as you have more and more lucid dreams, your dreaming focus and dreaming attention will improve consistently, which basically means just about every lucid dream you have is better and clearer. This kind of development stays with you, and once developed, will produce awesome lucid dreams on a regular basis!
Imagine the wonder and joy of waking up inside your own dream reality simply by realizing that you’re dreaming - knowing you can consciously create whatever experience you desire… and doing it, instantly. Now that’s what lucid dreaming is all about!
This is an extremely thorough course, covering everything you need to know about Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projectioninduction techniques. The insights are profound and original, and the information is all first-rate. It was written with the intention of being the best Lucid Dreaming guide available anywhere, so it’s really jam-packed from start to finish. This one will be a stayer folks!
Consisting of six books, it’s really going to take you places… The first book is a free introduction to lucid dreaming and astral projection. The second book is intended to prepare you and clear the way for these experiences. Third is an excellent comprehensive book on Lucid Dreaming induction and awareness. Fourth is a huge range of ideas for lucid dreaming applications and how to easily instigate your chosen lucid dreams. Fifth, it moves on to Astral Projection induction, with incredible insights on this phenomena and all the best improved methods. Sixth and upcoming is a guide on mastering your astral experiences.
I happen to know this is the best course available on Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projection… How do I know? Because the author is me! I’ve read dozens of books in the research phase of this writing project and nothing comes close to the depth and simplicity of this course.
Okay, perhaps it’s a little facecious reviewing my own books, but “it’s a dirty job and someone’s got to do it.” Lol! Luckily I’m a person who means what I say and says what I mean. Check out more details on the Ultimate Astral Experience Course.
Came across this one awhile ago… Wish I could remember where now. But it still cracks me up! And it makes the point so well too… how can we be taught to so flippantly ignore or devalue a huge portion of our 
