6 Benefits of Lucid Dreaming & Dream Yoga

To be exploring your dreams is to be working with your mind. Lucid dreaming happens when you realize that you’re dreaming as it’s happening. You may reall films like Dream yoga occurs when you use this lucidity for your own practice. Dream Yoga, rooted in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, allows us to “hack into the previously unconscious” and use our dreams to transform our waking lives. Wonder if this is worth exploring further?  Consider 6 benefits of lucid dreaming and dream yoga;

1. Extend our meditation practice into our sleeping hours

Buddhist teachings on emptiness and the alleviation of suffering, offer clues. We suffer because we take things to be real.  We suffer in direct proportion to how solid or unchanging we take the contents of our mind to be.  Dream yoga teachings gets to the heart of the matter. This can be confrontational yet, it shows us how we create our own suffering based on our beliefs in solid and heavy, and what is real. The removal of suffering is a direct effect of seeing the world as dreamlike. We use our study of night-time dreams to understand the mechanics of our suffering and happiness in the so-called daytime dream.

2.  Help manage nightmares

If we’re freaking out in the middle of a nightmare and we can wake up to the fact that we’re dreaming, then we can relieve suffering. We realize it isn’t real. That is being lucid. If we wake up to the fact that the contents of our mind are not as solid as we make them to be, then we see them as illusory. This is a process of awakening.

3. Better understand nightmares

To know nightmares on a mental level differs from the feeling and visceral level. Nightmares echo fragmented or disowned aspects of ourselves.  We’ve refused part of our experience. During a nightmare, these rejected aspects of our being are calling back for attention and reintegration. That’s why they’re chasing us. When we run away from them, we continue to keep them alive. That’s why people have recurring nightmares. The nightmare arises, and instead of relating to it, seeing it as it is, we run.  Instead of running, we can stop, turn around, and look directly at the monster. When we do, several things can happen. The monster may disappear, or it will stop and dissolve into us. By facing the monster, or by facing our demons, we can reintegrate these fragmented aspects of ourselves and absorb the nightmare.  This has big impact in our waking lives.

4. Uncover deeper Truth

There are relative truths to many of our dreams. Freud once said “an uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter.” The unconscious mind is frequently sending us teachings and messages in dreams and nightmares.  Lucid dreaming can transform sleep into a window to the deeper realities. Yet, we often experience dreams as unreal. We can do things in dreams we do not in waking reality, like fly. 

One of the reasons we don’t seem to have the same capabilities in waking reality as in dreams is because we take waking reality to be real. When you truly wake up, the waking world is just as real (or just as unreal) as the dream world. You start to see that the waking state is basically no different from the dream state. It’s the mind expressing itself in two different mediums.  We make this so-called waking reality more real than our dreaming reality. When the world is seen as illusory, the ego freaks out. It has nothing to stand on. Therefore it sees waking reality as real and the dream world as unreal.  The basic charter of these practices is to see the one taste of all these different dimensions of the mind so we’re no longer privileging one state over another. We have a very powerful prejudice toward waking consciousness. This is the source of lots of problems.

5. Explore the relevance of spiritual bypassing 

Spiritual bypassing here refers to nihilism.  This frequently arises as the near enemy when one asserts that reality is just a dream. Saying reality is just a dream is very dismissive. On one level, that level of dismissiveness is what we’re after. We’re trying to dismiss the imputed validity of reified waking reality. In that regard, dismissal is appropriate. An erroneous interpretation of this is a thought that sounds like, “If it’s all just a dream, who cares what I do?” With that mentality, you do not choose to be a conscious creator. There’s no compassion or social activism. There’s just apathy. You must realize it’s a subtle trap, and ego can default into that. When we’re working with these practices, there are all these subtle traps that ego will find. The proof you may be seeking is found through your own diligence and what is revealed through your direct experience.

6.  Prepare us to experience a lucid death

According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, dream yoga came about largely as a preparation for death. Padmasambhava [the 8th century Indian teacher who brought Buddhism to Tibet] once allegedly said that if we can maintain lucidity in our dream state seven times—in other words, if we can maintain lucidity with some constancy in the dream state—we can have a lucid death experience.

What the traditions put forth is that when we die, our lucidity or "bardo" awareness  (the in-between state after death and before rebirth] will be directly proportional to our lucidity in the dream state. This, in turn, is directly proportional to our lucidity in the meditative state.  Dream yoga is important because it empowers not only our dream practice, but also our meditation practice. The biggest reason we’re not lucid in our dreams is that we’re not lucid to contents of our mind during the day. That is incredibly important. So many studies have shown that meditators have more lucid dreams. If you practice meditation during the day and develop lucidity or awareness of the contents of your mind, that naturally expresses itself as increased lucidity in the dream state. The tradition then goes one step further to say that type of lucidity also transfers to a lucid bardo experience.

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It is important to recognize that huge resistance can come up for people when attempting lucid dreaming and dream yoga practices. Why?

The ego has a bias toward its version of awake reality. People fear some of these nocturnal practices as they’re afraid of the dark. Ego is simply keeping up its defences. Darkness is a code word for ignorance. Nighttime is an archetype of that ignorance for many people who prefer to stay in the dark.  Every time we go to sleep or get lost in monkey mind, ego is recharging its samsaric batteries. Not everybody wants to engage in dream yoga, because it will show us just how far we’re willing to go to wake up. Ego exists in the darkness of ignorance.  When we try to penetrate it with nocturnal dream practices, part of us that just doesn’t want to go there. 

In conclusion, lucid dreaming and dream yoga practices are not designed for everybody. They’re a little more advanced and require discipline. They are subtle and deep. People may wonder, why bother? While these practices are not all that easy, they are potentially more transformative, aswe are dealing more directly with the very roots of our ignorance. When we engage in these practices, it concerns the very tectonic plates of our existence.

 Our Astral, Lucid and Dream Yoga Course begins November 3rd.  Contact us for further information.

13 Benefits of facing your inner shadows

The inner shadow can be viewed as aspects of our true self we come to reject.  We resist these parts of our personality and do not allow ourselves to see them. When we, as children, internalize messages in our subconscious, they can take shape in adult life as emotional triggers. We may tell ourselves we do not know why we react as we do. Yet, a hidden part does know. We often make choices out of fear.

For instance, if one of your shadows formed around speaking your truth, when people around you speak openly and honestly, this may evoke restlessness, resentment, even terror. You may feel threatened but unclear as to why, and disregard the emotions and discomfort.

Upon deeper self-reflection, hiding your feelings may be an unconscious strategy to avoid suffering. It may point to a fear of safety or survival. This may cause you to stop speaking up, to decide your feelings are unimportant, that you are unlovable, invisible or flawed. Such misperceptions arise from denying shadows.

Consider 13 Benefits of facing your shadows:

1. Grow aware of your triggers

Noticing triggers is a step to joining the dots between your thoughts, feelings. They offer clues to where a sense of  wholeness is fractured. They remind us that it is our thoughts about the way things should be that make our lives difficult or uncomfortable.  People we encounter will continue to press our buttons until we realize what it is we do not wish to know about ourselves, yet.  They guide us to our source of freedom.  Any situation that evokes discomfort is what we seek, an entrance into a lost or unseen part of ourselves.

2. Re-activate your feeling centres

Many people have lost touch with their inner truth. They forget what it feels like. You may be conditioned to doubt or second guess true feelings. When taught to favor the left brain hemisphere, we favor the logical, rational role modelling or social beliefs and behaviours we have been given. We may downplay or devalue our right brain and creative capacities or "other ways of seeing" outside the conditioned comfort zone. This may relate to society's ideas of which life decisions "are best for us." Left-brain ideas are ego-based. Focusing on external advice or ignoring signs and signals of our bodies loses touch with the feeling truth or inner harmony unrelated to ego.

3. Stop being overly optimistic

Being overly optimistic suggests we are missing part of the bigger picture. When we only see the good, we reject aspects of self. Sometimes we are taught to be overly positive and avoid the negative.  Avoidance is a defense mechanism and reveals something is missed. As you notice a tendency to favor the positive, shadow-work is useful.  Ignoring things increases their density. Look at recurrent nightmares. What we resist, persists to invite us to make the unconscious, conscious.  Manifestations of what you reject grow stronger. If you resist your dark side, it grow more solid, takes shape in ways you cannot ignore.

4. Realize you could be right, or could be free

As you explore deeper reasons for anger and fear, this can trigger moments of awakening that lead to greater authenticity, creativity, and emotional freedom. Finding pleasure in the way things are, rather than the way you think they should be, inspires others to act in ways that surprise us. being open to deeper insight into yourself accelerates self- growth.

5. Let go of desires for love, approval & appreciation

As we disconnect from feeling centres and subtle senses, this is like overriding our inner knowing.  As we face the sense of conflict that arises, we begin to recognize that any desires we hold are unnecessary.  That is, we are what we are seeeking. This is the beginning of letting go of desire for love, approval and appreciation because it dawns we are never missing anything.

6. Recognize spiritual bypassing

In the case that we justify going against our feelings by saying "this is an exercise in uncondicional love & forgiveness," this may turn out to be a case of spiritual bypassing (SB).  SB is  is like any other form of avoidance that rewards us with a false feeling of security and happiness, while undermining our deeper path of self-growth and transformation. John Welwood coined the term, 'spiritual bypassing' to mean: "the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks." Making the unconscious conscious is part of spiritual integration.

7. Integrate heart and soul

Bringing uncomfortable issues to the surface is helping to realize that emotions only have a hold over us when we allow it. Timeless practices such as meditation, mantras, sacred geometry, journalling, automatic writing, dream journalling and immersing in nature help us to integrate the deepest desires of the heart and soul. This draws our attention to any illusions of separaton we perpetuate in thought, word and deed.

8.  Rebuild inner trust

Imagine the case where you befriend someone and they seem like one type of person and then later reveal they behave in ways that make you feel uncomfortable. If you trust your feelings, and are true to yourself, that friendship may diminish or disappear from your life. Whereas if you go against your inner compass, you are eroding the trust you have in yourself.  

9. Strengthen listening 

In life, there may be occasions where you feel unheard or ignored by people at work, in family or even in passing.  Being aware of feeling ignored is tuning into deeper  reasons and buried feelings of resentment and sadness about being devalued.  As you live more based on feelings, your being feels more heard and the external world reflects this back.

10. Sharpen intuition

Intuition is the language of the soul, your essence.  Living fully requires tuning in and living soely based on intuition without over-riding our inner knowing.

11. Jumpstart self-rediscovery 

Until deep self-reflection happens, you may spend a great deal of time researching, creating or changing a sense of purpose and not really feel a sense of lasting clarity or direction. Purpose may simply be related to  skills or experience you seem to have and overlook internal cues. Self-discovery only happens when you are tuned into your feelings. 

12. Unleash inner genius

To become the best version of you, and truly free of what holds this back from realizing inner genius, the path involves uncovering and integrating your inner shadow aspects. They undermine your transformation into into the physical. Call if your soul's destiny or whatever you like.  The most authentic version of you already exists but it is up to you to take steps to experience transfiguration. Every being has a unique path.

13. Accept yourself fully

Accepting who you are at the core involves living in alignment. Every journey to complete self-love is unique. Some paths can involve soul retrieval.  The key is to walk the Path and know situations that present only change from the moment we have learned and integrated what those energies or lessons have to teach us. Accepting yourself fully allows you to turn inward and experience the peace that already exists within.  That peace is immovable, unmoving, ever-present.

Contact us to explore shadow-work on a whole new level