dreaming90
4th June 2012, 09:58 PM
Why spend one-third of your life in oblivion?
Tibetan dream yoga is the ancient practice of lucid dreaming within the framework of Tibetan Buddhism, specifically the Dgozgen tradition. Dreams are used by the student as tools for obtaining enlightenment-- eliminating karmic traces and freeing oneself from samsara in the bardo state following death.
Dream yoga techniques are outlined in The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. I have summarized the basic practices of dream yoga so that consciousness explorers can use them for increasing the quality and quantity of lucid dreams, and perhaps for increased lucidity during OBEs. I have not yet read the more advanced section on sleep yoga.
Please understand that this is a fairly brief summary of dream yoga practices. I feel that it is enough for you to start your own practice and enrich your explorations in consciousness, but if you are serious about dream yoga, I highly recommend Rinpoche's book. Or better yet, find a real dream yoga teacher.
Preliminary Practices
Rinpoche recommends an established meditation practice before engaging in dream yoga. The method outlined in his book is called quiet abiding, and is very similar to zen meditation (eyes half-open, etc). I would imagine that any form of meditation will do.
The practice of mindfulness is also recommended.
Four Foundational Practices
ONE: CHANGING THE KARMIC TRACES
This practice essentially revolves around recognizing waking life as a dream. When you wake in the morning, recognize that you are "awake in a dream." Constantly remind yourself that you are dreaming. Don't just make it a robotic mantra, *feel* that you are in a dream. Treat all things as products of your mind, just as in a dream.
I personally find it helpful to have a running commentary in your mind about what you are doing, and label every noun or person as a "dream <noun>." For example, your commentary could be something like "Now I sit down in my dream chair and eat my dream breakfast... because I am dreaming right now... And now I watch the dream mailman walking outside..."
I suppose you could say that, instead of doing reality checks every 15 minutes, this practice develops lucidity by assuming that you are dreaming all the time. One day you will have your commentary going, and you really will be dreaming!
Most people go through life in a semi-conscious state, daydreaming and following set schedules. How can you be lucid in a dream when you aren't lucid in waking life?
TWO: REMOVING GRASPING AND AVERSION
The first practice involves treating physical stimuli as the products of a dream. This practice involves treating your emotional reactions to the physical stimuli as products of a dream. Your anger, your jealousy, even your happiness-- all merely dreams.
So if someone punches you in the face, recognize the person and the punch as merely dreams, and then recognize the following emotions (anger?) as a dream as well.
This practice gradually eliminates unhealthy desires and fears. Why be caught up in emotions if they are only dreams?? And if you can't control your emotions in waking life, how can you control them while dreaming?
THREE: STRENGTHENING INTENTION
When you lay down to sleep, reflect back on the memories of the day. Remind yourself that all that occurred was a dream. As you drift to sleep, make the strongest intention possible that you ARE lucid in your dreams.
There, that was easy.
FOUR: CULTIVATING JOYFUL PRACTICE
Make dream yoga enjoyable! Treat it like a game or fun new way of viewing your waking life. Practice out of joy is always more productive than practice that is forced.
Main Practice
The nighttime practice consists of multiple wake-back-to-beds, different sleeping positions, and focusing on specific chakras.
Now, time for the first posture. Here's Rinpoche's own words (pg. 104):
Lie in the lion posture: Men lie on their right side, women on their left. Bend the knees enough to make the body stable, rest the top arm along the side, and place the lower hand under the cheek. You may benefit from experimenting with using a slightly higher pillow, being careful of your neck, in order to keep the sleep lighter. Gentle the breath and relax the body. Allow the breath to be full and very quiet so that neither the inhalation nor the exhalation can be heard.
Comfy? No? Great! Discomfort promotes lighter sleep, which means greater lucidity. Deep sleepers are at a disadvantage when it comes to lucid dreaming. My very first lucid dream occurred when I had injured my wrist and forgot to take medicine for the pain before bed. Of course, you don't want to be so uncomfortable that you can't get to sleep. It's a balancing act. And remember, Tibetan monks slept on small pieces of carpet, as opposed to the giant fluffy beds we modern folks are used to.
Now, place your attention on the throat chakra, symbolized in the Tibetan tradition as the Tibetan letter A encased in four red petals. Rest your attention gently on this symbol as sleep comes. This practice is meant to bring awareness and prana into the central channel, and is said to bring gentle dreams.
After sleeping approximately two hours, wake up and engage in the second part of the practice.
Lie in the same position as the first-- men on the right side, women on the left. The second practice begins with a very specific form of breathing. I'll let Rinpoche take over for a moment:
A particular form of breathing is to be done: inhale and hold the breath very gently. Lightly clench the perineum, the muscles of the floor of the pelvis, so that you have the sense of pulling the held breath upward. Try to experience the breath as being held just below the navel, compressed by the pressure from below. It is difficult to imagine this kind of breathing, and it may be necessary to experiment a bit until the sense of it is discovered. Better yet is to receive detailed instructions from a teacher.
After holding the breath for a few moments, gently exhale. During the exhalation, relax the muscles in the pelvis, the chest and the whole body. Completely relax. Repeat this seven times.
Now, the whole point of this is to place awareness on the brow chakra, symbolized by a tiny ball of fuzzy, white light. Rather than gently resting attention on the chakra like last time, you need to feel a sense of *merging* with the chakra. Become one with the ball of light.
Supposedly, this will allow unbroken awareness as you slip into sleep dream. This practice is meant to bring about clarity and lucidity in dreams.
After two hours, it's time to wake up and start the third practice.
A new position is necessary. Lay on your back, head supported on a high pillow (to sleep lighter and increase lucidity), and cross legs loosely.
Take twenty-one deep breaths and focus on the heart chakra, symbolized in the Tibetan tradition by the luminous, black HUNG symbol. Merge with the HUNG, and then let the mind rest lightly in the HUNG as you fall to sleep.
This practice is said to develop powerful dreams.
Roughly two hours after the third practice is started, it's time to wake up and perform the last practice.
There is no prescribed position and no breathing rhythm. Simply make yourself comfortable and focus on the genital chakra, symbolized by a black ball of luminous light. Become the black ball of light. Lightly rest your awareness inside the black light that is everywhere as you fall asleep.
This practice is said to develop wrathful dreams-- nightmares, basically. This will help you to practice courage in the face of (perceived) dangers in the dream world.
You don't have to wake until morning.
When you do wake up, review the night, just as you reviewed the events of the day before sleep. Did you have a lucid experience? If so, celebrate! If not, persevere! A consistent effort will result in lucidity.
It is very important to do these exercises in the PRECISE order given. If you do the first practice and accidentally sleep until dawn, do not skip to the fourth practice. Do the second practice.
Dream yoga is not a magic bullet that will impart lucidity to you in a single night. It was considered an advanced practice, preceded by years of meditation and study in a monastery. It may take several weeks of practice to get major results, though I would expect noticeable improvements immediately.
Dream yoga, of course, also gives certain practices to do while lucid to work towards enlightenment. In reviewing these techniques, they seem to really be nothing more than what "typical" lucid dreamers do-- travelling to foreign places, chatting with dream characters, becoming a sound or a rain drop, and so on. You could also convert the lucid dream into an OBE. Practice with dream yoga results in lucidity every night, which means you have a wonderful opportunity for projection every 24 hours.
Good luck!
Tibetan dream yoga is the ancient practice of lucid dreaming within the framework of Tibetan Buddhism, specifically the Dgozgen tradition. Dreams are used by the student as tools for obtaining enlightenment-- eliminating karmic traces and freeing oneself from samsara in the bardo state following death.
Dream yoga techniques are outlined in The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. I have summarized the basic practices of dream yoga so that consciousness explorers can use them for increasing the quality and quantity of lucid dreams, and perhaps for increased lucidity during OBEs. I have not yet read the more advanced section on sleep yoga.
Please understand that this is a fairly brief summary of dream yoga practices. I feel that it is enough for you to start your own practice and enrich your explorations in consciousness, but if you are serious about dream yoga, I highly recommend Rinpoche's book. Or better yet, find a real dream yoga teacher.
Preliminary Practices
Rinpoche recommends an established meditation practice before engaging in dream yoga. The method outlined in his book is called quiet abiding, and is very similar to zen meditation (eyes half-open, etc). I would imagine that any form of meditation will do.
The practice of mindfulness is also recommended.
Four Foundational Practices
ONE: CHANGING THE KARMIC TRACES
This practice essentially revolves around recognizing waking life as a dream. When you wake in the morning, recognize that you are "awake in a dream." Constantly remind yourself that you are dreaming. Don't just make it a robotic mantra, *feel* that you are in a dream. Treat all things as products of your mind, just as in a dream.
I personally find it helpful to have a running commentary in your mind about what you are doing, and label every noun or person as a "dream <noun>." For example, your commentary could be something like "Now I sit down in my dream chair and eat my dream breakfast... because I am dreaming right now... And now I watch the dream mailman walking outside..."
I suppose you could say that, instead of doing reality checks every 15 minutes, this practice develops lucidity by assuming that you are dreaming all the time. One day you will have your commentary going, and you really will be dreaming!
Most people go through life in a semi-conscious state, daydreaming and following set schedules. How can you be lucid in a dream when you aren't lucid in waking life?
TWO: REMOVING GRASPING AND AVERSION
The first practice involves treating physical stimuli as the products of a dream. This practice involves treating your emotional reactions to the physical stimuli as products of a dream. Your anger, your jealousy, even your happiness-- all merely dreams.
So if someone punches you in the face, recognize the person and the punch as merely dreams, and then recognize the following emotions (anger?) as a dream as well.
This practice gradually eliminates unhealthy desires and fears. Why be caught up in emotions if they are only dreams?? And if you can't control your emotions in waking life, how can you control them while dreaming?
THREE: STRENGTHENING INTENTION
When you lay down to sleep, reflect back on the memories of the day. Remind yourself that all that occurred was a dream. As you drift to sleep, make the strongest intention possible that you ARE lucid in your dreams.
There, that was easy.
FOUR: CULTIVATING JOYFUL PRACTICE
Make dream yoga enjoyable! Treat it like a game or fun new way of viewing your waking life. Practice out of joy is always more productive than practice that is forced.
Main Practice
The nighttime practice consists of multiple wake-back-to-beds, different sleeping positions, and focusing on specific chakras.
Now, time for the first posture. Here's Rinpoche's own words (pg. 104):
Lie in the lion posture: Men lie on their right side, women on their left. Bend the knees enough to make the body stable, rest the top arm along the side, and place the lower hand under the cheek. You may benefit from experimenting with using a slightly higher pillow, being careful of your neck, in order to keep the sleep lighter. Gentle the breath and relax the body. Allow the breath to be full and very quiet so that neither the inhalation nor the exhalation can be heard.
Comfy? No? Great! Discomfort promotes lighter sleep, which means greater lucidity. Deep sleepers are at a disadvantage when it comes to lucid dreaming. My very first lucid dream occurred when I had injured my wrist and forgot to take medicine for the pain before bed. Of course, you don't want to be so uncomfortable that you can't get to sleep. It's a balancing act. And remember, Tibetan monks slept on small pieces of carpet, as opposed to the giant fluffy beds we modern folks are used to.
Now, place your attention on the throat chakra, symbolized in the Tibetan tradition as the Tibetan letter A encased in four red petals. Rest your attention gently on this symbol as sleep comes. This practice is meant to bring awareness and prana into the central channel, and is said to bring gentle dreams.
After sleeping approximately two hours, wake up and engage in the second part of the practice.
Lie in the same position as the first-- men on the right side, women on the left. The second practice begins with a very specific form of breathing. I'll let Rinpoche take over for a moment:
A particular form of breathing is to be done: inhale and hold the breath very gently. Lightly clench the perineum, the muscles of the floor of the pelvis, so that you have the sense of pulling the held breath upward. Try to experience the breath as being held just below the navel, compressed by the pressure from below. It is difficult to imagine this kind of breathing, and it may be necessary to experiment a bit until the sense of it is discovered. Better yet is to receive detailed instructions from a teacher.
After holding the breath for a few moments, gently exhale. During the exhalation, relax the muscles in the pelvis, the chest and the whole body. Completely relax. Repeat this seven times.
Now, the whole point of this is to place awareness on the brow chakra, symbolized by a tiny ball of fuzzy, white light. Rather than gently resting attention on the chakra like last time, you need to feel a sense of *merging* with the chakra. Become one with the ball of light.
Supposedly, this will allow unbroken awareness as you slip into sleep dream. This practice is meant to bring about clarity and lucidity in dreams.
After two hours, it's time to wake up and start the third practice.
A new position is necessary. Lay on your back, head supported on a high pillow (to sleep lighter and increase lucidity), and cross legs loosely.
Take twenty-one deep breaths and focus on the heart chakra, symbolized in the Tibetan tradition by the luminous, black HUNG symbol. Merge with the HUNG, and then let the mind rest lightly in the HUNG as you fall to sleep.
This practice is said to develop powerful dreams.
Roughly two hours after the third practice is started, it's time to wake up and perform the last practice.
There is no prescribed position and no breathing rhythm. Simply make yourself comfortable and focus on the genital chakra, symbolized by a black ball of luminous light. Become the black ball of light. Lightly rest your awareness inside the black light that is everywhere as you fall asleep.
This practice is said to develop wrathful dreams-- nightmares, basically. This will help you to practice courage in the face of (perceived) dangers in the dream world.
You don't have to wake until morning.
When you do wake up, review the night, just as you reviewed the events of the day before sleep. Did you have a lucid experience? If so, celebrate! If not, persevere! A consistent effort will result in lucidity.
It is very important to do these exercises in the PRECISE order given. If you do the first practice and accidentally sleep until dawn, do not skip to the fourth practice. Do the second practice.
Dream yoga is not a magic bullet that will impart lucidity to you in a single night. It was considered an advanced practice, preceded by years of meditation and study in a monastery. It may take several weeks of practice to get major results, though I would expect noticeable improvements immediately.
Dream yoga, of course, also gives certain practices to do while lucid to work towards enlightenment. In reviewing these techniques, they seem to really be nothing more than what "typical" lucid dreamers do-- travelling to foreign places, chatting with dream characters, becoming a sound or a rain drop, and so on. You could also convert the lucid dream into an OBE. Practice with dream yoga results in lucidity every night, which means you have a wonderful opportunity for projection every 24 hours.
Good luck!