Introduction
Constant awareness is the basic idea within Tibetan Dream Yoga. This workshop is meant to give everyone a modern view of the basic ideas within dream yoga and still keep with the original ideas of the yogis. This includes a constant awareness or reality checking, special meditation and visualization. There will be an introduction to some of the more advanced practices of dream yoga at the end of the course.
Even if you're not a natural, you can teach yourself to think like one. If you can do that, you'll have LDs all the time without really trying. It's all just a matter of changing the way you think, and making that thought pattern into a habit. So it WILL take some time for you to internalize, but once you do, it'll be second nature and you won't have to put almost any effort into doing it.
The thing that works best is simply awareness. And I really mean awareness. The hard part is just getting yourself out of that day-to-day mindless thinking that you tend to go into from excessive work, school and stress.
Most people go through their days thinking about where they need to be going next, and what they need to be doing, and wondering where they should be eating. They spend very little time being truly aware of their surroundings.
This is where that meditation stuff really helps, by the way! Meditation teaches the kind of awareness I'm talking about. Meditation is a tool that can teach you what true mindfulness feels like. The real trick to getting lucid is to keep that feeling of awareness going on all the time, even if it's not always completely conscious. So in this workshop we'll be doing some meditations geared toward making lucid dreams happen.
The easy way to LD is a state of constant awareness. So make your day one big long reality check. Only instead of a specific RC, begin to question everything around you at once. Quiet your mind, and simply be aware of your state of consciousness. Be aware of the FEELING of LIVING and being AWAKE. It's a much different feeling than being asleep or even astral projecting.
I believe that many natural LDers do this unconsciously. They just "know" when they are dreaming because they know it feels different. This also may explain why naturals have a hard time explaining exactly how they get lucid. They don't really GET lucid...they ARE lucid every moment of the day and night.
Also, during the day, remember that reality, too, is subjective. In a way we human beings are always dreaming, because our minds are always interpreting what our senses are gathering, trying to make sense of what's around us. Is reality objective, or is reality simply the interpretation we get in the end? Human beings are truly unable to examine the objective world completely.
By the way, if you already have problems distinguishing reality from a dream, or have schizophrenia, or any other serious mental conditions I DO NOT advise you do this workshop, because if your mind is unstable the last thing you should be doing is questioning reality or considering reality a dream. No matter how deeply aware you are, you will NEVER confuse real life with a dream.
Yes, it's time to start the workshop. Naiya (quoted above) hasn't signed in to post yet, so I'm posting the unofficially official welcome thread.
I'm very excited about this workshop! I'm looking forwards to along with Naiya guide you towards higher Awareness, and, of course, more lucid dreams.
Those of you who are attending, please create your workbooks as a thread in this subforum. Thanks!
