Lucid dreaming in Buddhist Bali (Part 2)

Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Lillian Pierson; Robert Waggoner; Nina Persson

Stupa uncovered revealing Buddha inside a bell, Borobudur, Indonesia (sun-surfer.com)

 

What does it mean, "lucid dreaming"?

Buddhist Indo looks over Indonesia

Lucid dreaming is the practice or ability to be aware of dreaming in a dream. There is astral projection, and there is mastering "reality." If life is an illusion, a "dream" (maya), then being lucid means becoming aware of how much we are controlling or contributing to what's going on.

Why Buddhist Indonesia?

Sakka, King (Indo) of the Devas

Ciara is going this summer, and we would like to go. But whereas she can go on a plane, we may have to find other means. For one, we can study history. "Indonesia" was once a Buddhist land, "Indo" being an apparent reference to Sakka, King of the Devas (a.k.a. Indra), the famous Buddhist raja-deva or "archangel" (Michael in Christianity, Maghavā of Macala in a past life when he performed the karma that resulted in being reborn as a "Sakka," which is a cosmic station occupied by various individuals), an "extraterrestrial" who looks after this planet from the celestial World of the Thirty-Three and the nearby Realm of the Four Great Regents or Sky-Kings.

I had my first transcendental meditation experience just now at The Yoga Barn, Bali. I was definitely in an altered state of body and mind... Some major blessings were received (a pink heart lotus), and some heavy fears were roused during the class (Lillian Pierson).

When was this part of Asia, thousands of islands spread over such a vast distance, Buddhist and Hindu?

Eventually Islam conquered and overran the island chain, approximately 400 years ago. But Bali is still partly Buddhist. DhammaCakraTra says Theravada Buddhism is indigenous. History books say it was once all Mahayana Buddhist and animist. Whatever the form of Islam, it is still very much influenced by its Dharmic past, as if it were an extension of the Khmer Empire, Cambodia, or Asoka's Indian Empire, which probably included modern Afghanistan, the land of the Buddha's birth and early life.

Borobudur Buddhas hidden in bell stupas, hazy Indonesia (Fuerst/flickr.com)

 

Why Indonesia today?

It may have been that Elizabeth Gilbert reintroduced us to this great land. Or it may be that it is miraculous that the largest Buddhist temple is here -- bigger than Angkor Wat, Cambodia, though maybe not as big as unexcavated Mes Aynak, Afghanistan -- at Borobudur. But dreaming now often gets romantic, as author Gilbert found out. Why do we travel thousands of miles to find a wise person living in a saintly hermitage only to ask her or him, "What do I do about my relationship?" We get out into the world, travel far, and that's still the main thing we think about? Apparently.

Do you think about that, too?

Yes. I mean, for all the other things I think about, this Cardigans song washes over me from time to time over someone I love or think I love.

Which song?

"Nasty Sunny Beam," which is infantile and über sweet:

Bali is a spiritual land of light and love, a healing, spiritual place for cleansing and renewal.

i can't get out of bed/ can't get my dreams out/ of my sleepy head/ i open up my eyes/ and wonder where you are/ but soon i realize/ that you're not real/and i am/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam/ i try to seal my mind/ and get back to where you were/ oh, you were that perfect kind/ you drove me crazy/ somewhere/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam/ i'm floating down again/ and my world is a syrup waterfall/ i can't remember when/ or where/ or why!/ in between a day and dream/ life and death, a lazy stream/ in between a day and dream/ hello, goodbye,/ you nasty sunny beam!

 

Lucid Dreaming Experience

Interviewer Robert Waggoner with Chad Adams (dreaminglucid.com/lde/lde3_1.pdf)

First Meditation in a Lucid Dream (1997)
I stand on the beach, and small waves lap on the sand. It is dark out, and everything is tinged in a deep purple except the sand, which is a brilliant glowing blue. The sky overhead is luminescent with a vast [number] of stars and what looks like the Milky Way Galaxy.

 

I become lucid [aware that this is in fact a dream] and immediately want to try a new experience of practicing meditation while lucid in a dream. I sit down on the sand, cross my legs, and close my eyes. Strange that immediately upon closing my eyes I become extremely aware of my mind as bi-local, or being in two places at one time. I sense myself lying on my bed and here, meditating on a beautiful beach at night in a lucid dream. I push that thought away and begin clearing my mind of all thought. Time passes.

 

Tibetan Dream Yoga, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal

I feel a presence. I open my eyes and stand. Someone or something is standing above me. (I cannot recall what it looked like.) It doesn't speak; instead, it motions me to follow. We walk down a path winding through the sand dunes and enter a cave. The interior is lit with an orange light, which has no source. To our right a ramp leads up towards an archway, above which is a sculpture of an eye etched from the rock wall of the cave itself.

The eye is very reminiscent of the one on the back of a dollar bill. I know I am to go through the archway and go under what I later realized was a symbol of my third eye. I walk the stone ramp, underneath the eye. Suddenly, I lose my footing and I'm sliding down a slippery "tunnel slide" that has the texture and appearance of loose skin. It startles me, but doesn't yet scare me.

 

Guided Online Workshop, Robert Waggoner

When I come to a stop, I find myself in a tiny room the size of a small shower. On all six sides [up, down, and all around] I am surrounded by the texture and feel of skin flowing like a thick curtain. Again, there is a subtle light illuminating the tiny area, but I haven't thought of its source for I am beginning to panic. Everywhere I place my hand, my foot, everywhere I push, it gives slightly, like elastic. I am really scared now as there is no way out. The panic overrides the knowledge that I am in a dream, and I feel as if I am to suffocate and die in this place. It seems unending.

London, Ireland 2014 (gatewaysofthemind.com)

The realization of the utter uselessness of panic hits me. There is nothing to be gained in the fear. It has gotten me nowhere. And when the fear of enclosure dissipates, I am released. I slow down and slump to the floor.
 

At first I feel resignation then a bit of guilt for giving up, but it is quickly replaced by a feeling of complete peace. A feeling like a close friend is there and will always be there. The walls, the ceiling, the floor...fall away. I am infused by a blissful euphoria, floating in no-time. There is nothing around. Fear seems to be a historic past. I remember asking myself how I could possibly be afraid of anything that is so...so wise, so teaching, so... More

• Lucid Dreaming Experience, Vol. 3, No. 1, June '14
• VIDEO: Kingdom of the Little People, China

Addiction: Indonesia and Iboga (video)

VICE/HBO; Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (ATS), Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Gabor Mate

The world's biggest Buddhist temple is in Borobudur, Indonesia. It is a mandala shaped like a pyramid topped by stupas or reliquaries and strange "bells" with Buddhas inside, similar to German Die Glocke time-travel technology from WW II (Wisdom Quarterly).

NICOTINE: Tobaccoland

Shamans can cure (I-M)

The dangers of smoking are no secret in the U.S., but in Indonesia, the tobacco industry goes virtually unregulated. The result? Over two-thirds of all males are smokers and tobacco (nicotine with sugar used in curing the leaves, a preservative that makes it much more addictive than in its natural form) addicts. It is commonplace for children as young as six to take up the habit and buy cigarettes legally. Tobacco is a $100 billion industry here, with TV and print ads everywhere. Investigating this phenomenon in Malang, VICE visits a clinic that promises cures to a plethora of modern ailments using tobacco and smoking -- with an intrepid correspondent getting the full "smoke-therapy" treatment.

IBOGA: Underground Heroin Clinic

Heroin is one of the most easy-to-become addicted to substances on Earth. While it cannot be said to be addictive itself, according to Dr. Gabor Mate, many susceptible individuals certainly do become addicts, utterly dependent on it even as it brings about their ruin. ["Addiction" is the interaction of susceptibility from childhood trauma and introduction of the substance to the nervous system, usually for self-soothing rituals]. Some people will do anything to kick the habit.

Enter Ibogaine -- a drug made out of the African iboga root (T. iboga), whose intense, entheogenic and hallucinogenic properties make it a Type-A felony drug (Schedule 1, regarded as having no medicinal or redeeming qualities by the Big Pharma-influenced medical industry as part of the "military-industrial pharmaceutical complex" that pushes artificial, for-profit chemicals and allopathic "treatments" rather than any actual cures).

Bamboo bridge and waterfall (sun-surfer.com)

But many swear iboga is the most effective way to kick heroin and other substance addictions like alcohol -- especially when combined with shamanic rituals that involves a human guide who enters into trance, interacts with the spirit world, does face painting, chanting, and engages in other traditional practices. VICE follows the journey of one heroin addict who travels to Mexico, where Ibogaine is legal, to finally quit drugs.

• Addiction? (recovery)
• Buddhism: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
• Mind/Body Health
• When the Body Says No
• Childhood Development & Parenting
• AD(H)D (attention deficit)
• Scattered Minds
• Hold On To Your Kids
• Bon Shaman Buddhism: Ven. Wangyal
  

Brain zaps trigger lucid dreams (science)

Bahar Gholipour (LiveScience.com, May 11, 2014); Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

What is a dream but an astral journey to Wyrd? (dreamingdog.multipy.com)

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Dream Dancer (Josephine Wall)

Lucid dreams, in which people are aware of and can control their dreams, are rare.

 

But now scientists have found they can induce this [magical] state of mind in people by zapping their brains with a specific frequency of electricity.

 

"I never thought this would work," said study researcher Dr. John Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and longtime sleep researcher at Harvard University. "But it looks like it does."

 

The Monroe Institute: Explore consciousness

 

The results showed that when the inexperienced dreamers were zapped with a current of 40 Hertz, 77 percent of the time these participants reported having what were described as lucid dreams.

"They were really excited," said study researcher Ursula Voss, of J.W. Goethe-University Frankfurt, who designed the experiments. "The dream reports were short, but long enough for them to report, 'Wow, all of the sudden I knew this was a dream, while I was dreaming.'

 

Dream waves

(Bruce Rolff/shutterstock/livescience.com)

A lucid dream can be thought of as an overlap between two states of consciousness -- the one that exists in normal dreaming, and the one during wakefulness, which involves higher levels of awareness and control.

 

"If I'm aware, if I'm self-reflective, if I'm thinking about myself, about my past and future, that's normally a waking function," Voss said.

In lucid dreaming, we transfer elements of waking consciousness into the dream, she said.

 

Such overlap is also reflected in the brain waves that researchers can detect using electroencephalography, or EEG... More

 

"Waking Life"

(Waking Life) Dreaming on purpose and with a conscious objective (by Richard Linklater)

• 7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams
• PHOTOS: The horror of prison-guard rapists
• Himalayas: The story of "the Roof of the World" 
• Police are dying in Los Angeles, LAPD confused 
• Paying a lot for specialty drugs? Big Pharma :)
• How young is too young to be suspended from school?
• Science: Life got better after "Black Death" (well, it couldn't have gotten much worse. Hooray for Nixon's Nat'l "Security" Advisor Henry Kissinger and other Nixon-era Globalists who want to decimate the human population!)
• Sun's glint wakes up world's deepest lake (Baikal)
• BOOM! Underwater explorer implodes six miles down 
• Will American Empire collapse like all others before it?
• Nagas in the News: "Pinocchio-Rex," cousin of T. Rex
• Exhibitionist Justin Bieber spotted topless, and almost bare back in L.A.'s Griffith Park!

Woman able to leave her body at will

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Douglas Main, "The case of the voluntary out-of-body experience," Popular Science, March 6, 2014 (popsci.com)

The "Out of Body Experience" (OOBE) may be as natural for children as sleep and NDE for us.

 

March 2014: Science of Sleep

After a class on out-of-body experiences [like lucid dreaming], a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa came forward to researchers to say that she could have these voluntarily, usually before sleep. "She appeared surprised that not everyone could experience this," wrote the scientists in a study describing the case, published in February in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

• Eckankar.org
• Meetups: Astral Projection
• Int'l Academy of Consciousness
• Astral Projection: Anyone can do it
• School for Out of Body Experiences

International Academy of Consciousness (iacworld.org) on the science of "projectiology"

 

OOBE? I thought you said NDE.

Pretty crazy, right? One would think that if you could leave your own body and float above it, you'd be a little more... vocal about it. But since it was a common experience for her -- one she "began performing as a child when bored with 'sleep time' at preschool... moving above her body" instead of napping -- it may have appeared unremarkable. This is way more interesting than what I did, which was indeed napping.

Free book to leave body

The most exciting thing about this case, to me, is "the possibility that this phenomenon may have a significant incidence but [is] unreported because people do not think this is exceptional," as the authors wrote. "Alternatively," they continued, "the ability might be present in infancy but is lost without regular practice.

This would be reminiscent of the discovery and eventual study of synesthesia [confounding colors with sounds] that some researchers now hypothesized is more prevalent in young people or can be developed."

 

Those are fascinating suggestions -- both that these out-of-body experiences may be more common than previously thought, or could be learned during a critical window early in life.

 

But back to the case study. The 24-year-old "continued to perform this experience as she grew up assuming, as mentioned, that 'everyone could do it.'" This is how she described her out-of-body experiences: More