I Hear Voices in My Head
The voices do not tell me to burn things, or anything like that. I'm not crazy, I promise. But hey, you're reading this document on the internet, so maybe it's just better if you assume the worst anyways.
On the plus side - the voices do tell me about how people around me are truly feeling, how to best help my friends with their problems, and sometimes I even get handy warnings that save me from doing something foolish. I get structured "lessons" that help me better myself and help me to understand my own internal thinking and incorrect assumptions. The voices deal with me on a personal level that makes learning very effective.
For example, just recently I was having issues with my ego. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it, so I asked my subconscious to help me out. I went about my life like normal, but every once in a while, my subconscious would butt in and say, "You know, that experience you just had relates to the lesson you want to learn." This would really confuse me, because the experiences my subconscious pointed out seemed unrelated. This happened over a period of a month, and I accumulated a lot of experiences that were all linked to this issue I was having with my ego.
Finally, I figured it out. I had become proud of helping people, which actually causes problems in the long run. My subconscious confirmed that it was the lesson I was searching for, and all my past experiences now made sense. This type of personal learning is very helpful - my subconscious knows exactly what I'm thinking, and can instantly identify thoughts that are unhealthy. It can then alert me of them.
(Please be aware: I have the freedom to remain stubborn and think whatever I want - my subconscious is not policing my thoughts and punishing me for thinking "incorrectly". But if I want a lesson, and I'm open to it, then my subconscious is willing to help me achieve my goal of learning a lesson.)
How to Get Started
The first step is learning the difference between your voice, and the voice of your subconscious. This separation isn't always definite - in fact, sometimes my thoughts blur between my own, and my subconscious. But a lot of times, there is a distinct difference.
To do this, you need to learn to not think of anything, damper your emotions, and remove all expectation. Picture your mind as a pool of water - every time you think, you create ripples. Every emotion you feel, you create larger waves. Expectation also forms ripples, which is why you need to sit back and relax without expecting anything. You need to have a perfectly calm pool of water. When you can achieve that, you'll notice that ripples start to form on their own. This is your subconscious.
A good way to do that is to pose yourself a question, and wait to hear an answer. For example, think about a friend, and ask, "How does Sally feel today?" Then wait to hear something. This act of waiting will put your mind in a nice receptive state. If you aren't emotionally attached to the outcome, and you just sit there waiting for an answer, it will make your mind very quiet and ready to receive.
When you first start to do this, you might notice a ripple here or there, and then get very excited. Excitement is like dropping a boulder into your pool of water. It's great that you heard something, but you need to stay calm, and keep your mind in a receptive state of mind. If you posed yourself a question, usually the answer will come in a flash.
If you aren't receiving anything, ask the same question over again. Some questions I've sat down and asked for ten minutes or longer, until I received an answer that I was satisfied with. To do that, I ask my question, then wait maybe 20 seconds. If I don't hear any reply, I will ask again, and wait another 20 seconds. I will keep doing this until I get an answer. Be determined! You'd be surprised the sorts of answers you'll come up with after annoying the crap out of your subconscious with the same question over and over again. Don't stop until you are satisfied.
Subconscious or Imagination?
When you first start doing this, you might be very suspicious that you're creating these answers with your imagination. You just might be - at first it's hard to know for sure. The only way to ensure that your answers aren't from your imagination is to have confidence in your ability to make your conscious mind quiet. If your conscious mind is perfectly quiet, and you are waiting for an answer to your question, then your imagination is also waiting.
What usually happens when you first start is that you begin to hear an answer, and then your imagination kicks in, and starts trying to create an answer based on the first few fragments that you correctly received. So you end up with some good information, and some information that might make sense to you, but is incorrect.
This happens because you can't keep your mind quiet. For example, let's say you have a little crush on a girl, and you want to know if she's into you. You ask, "Does Jessica Alba like me?" Your subconscious starts to reply with, "Jessica Alba doesn't know you exist," but since you are all dreamy and emotional about it, you only hear, "Blah Alba blah know blah blah." You start to get emotional, and your imagination starts to fill in the blanks... and you incorrectly receive "Jessica Alba needs to know you love her". Congratulations - you've just screwed everything up.
But don't worry, it happens to the best of us. It just takes some practice in understanding what you are emotional about, and the ability to recognize when you are being emotional about something. There are some questions I can't get answers to because I am too emotional when I think about the question. Emotions mean that I have waves splashing around in my pool of water - and the subtle ripples from the subconscious get lost in the furry.
You Are Not Ready
I really hate to sound cliché - but this is true. You will only hear what you are ready to hear. If you don't believe that precognition is possible, then when you receive precognitive information from your subconscious, your beliefs start to create ripples that interfere with it. You analyze the information, and say, "That can't be true", and in a flash the information becomes corrupted by your own limitations.
For example, you might have read my story in the introduction about my ego, and thought, "Why doesn't Sean's subconscious just tell him the lesson he wanted to learn? If you can ask anything, and hear anything, then why not ask for the answer, and be done with it?" The reason is that my conscious mind wasn't ready to hear the answer. Certain things need to be understood. What good is it if I'm trying to teach you Calculus, and I give you all the answers on the test? The only thing I taught you was how to pass the test - when you get a job at NASA where you need to apply Calculus, you'll fail. You are not your subconscious. You need to be able to make decisions on your own without sitting around waiting for your subconscious to reply. To do that, you need understanding, not just superficial knowledge.
Use your subconscious as a learning tool. A way to understand reality from a different perspective, and challenge yourself. Don't use your subconscious as a replacement for logic, or decision making. Use it in addition to logic, and use it to help you make decisions. Keep your expectations, emotions, and thoughts still - and you will be able to pick up on the subtle useful ripples from the depths of your subconscious.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Communicating with your Subconscious
Introduction
All of the exercises presented on PsiPog are great for accomplishing tasks and getting better using psi, but your subconscious is the gatekeeper. Basically, all the exercises are instructions to your subconscious to do something. Visualizations, anchoring, associations, and any other trick we can pull out of our sleeves are all geared at telling your subconscious what you want to do. You don't move the psi, you don't make the psi ball, you don't spin the pinwheel; your subconscious does.
This is a scary concept for some people. Some of us have the power to do some amazing things with our mind - what if our subconscious just decided to do these things without our permission? I've been mad enough at a person to think "I'm gonna kill you!" but of course I didn't mean it - what if my subconscious misunderstood? What if it thought I was giving it a command? Or what if my subconscious develops an attitude of it's own and decides by itself to hurt someone? It is a scary concept - but that's just more of a reason why we need to be able to communicate clearly with our subconscious and tell it what we really want. The subconscious mind is like a computer - it doesn't make decisions on it's own unless we program it to. Your subconscious is your responsibility, and the only way to know what is programmed in your head is to develop a link and check it out yourself.
"You're nuts - I control my body - my subconscious doesn't play that big of a role." Oh really? What do you do in life without first asking for something from your subconscious? You move your fingers, but do you send the electrical signals to your muscles? You walk to the store, but do you process the air you breath to give your legs energy? Even something as simple as thinking requires electricity and a specific balance of chemicals. It seems this "subconscious" isn't just a handy tool to manipulate for psionics - it's a part of everything you do. Communicating with your subconscious is vital for success in controlling your body and mind.
Not many people are comfortable with the idea of talking to themselves. I hear voices in my head, don't you? Society has branded us as crazy, but since we're already talking about moving things with our minds and reading another's mind, why let the immature labels stop you from learning about your own body? After all, this is your body, not society's, so it's good to keep tabs on what's going on inside of it. Not only that, but your subconscious is a part of you. It's not some external object or entity.* Nothing is wrong with exploring your own mind.
Right Now
The first thing to realize is that your subconscious is talking to you right now. It could be spattering off information you've requested without even realizing it, giving you a status report on a cut you have on your leg, or telling you to "scratch that itch". Ever think about how you know certain things? How do you know when you're hungry? How do you know when you have to go to the bathroom? How do you remember things? We take a lot of things for granted and have learned through bad habits to ignore messages that aren't vital to our existence. That song on the radio or that TV show is more important than how much water is in our system - let "someone else" take care of that, right? Oh hell no! Unfortunately, there are a lot of useful messages that aren't vital that we learn to ignore. Not only that, but the link goes both ways - once you get the hang of it, you're free to ask your subconscious questions along with receive these handy messages.
If your subconscious is talking right now, why don't you hear it? Most likely because you're thinking about ten thousand useless things at once and you drown it out. You won't hear it like you hear normal noises; it "talks" to you with flashes of emotion and thought concepts. It's talking to you right now, maybe if you listened you'd hear something. Ever notice meditation is aimed at getting your conscious mind shut up? Sylvia Boorstein is quoted saying, "Don't just do something. Sit there." We don't think it's great just because we're cruel and want you to sit in your room alone. Keep your mind still for five minutes and listen!
How I Started
What got me hooked? Quite frankly, I read this: http://www.robertpeterson.org/chap10.html. (if that link doesn't work for some reason, e-mail me and I can send you what's on that page at the time I'm writing this).
You start by asking yourself questions in your head and waiting for the answer. Start simple: "Am I hungry?". Or, how about something suggested on the link above: "What is love?". Now just wait for the answer. Don't create the answer - just listen for one to emerge. Chances are you won't hear anything, but you might feel something. You have a feeling for what "hungry" means and you intuitively know what "love" is, listen for these feelings and try to translate them into words. This is how I started, so this is the only way I know for someone else to do it. Get in the habit of talking to yourself and asking yourself questions, then learn to shut up and listen for the answer.
After a while you'll notice a difference between thinking and sending information to your subconscious. At first you'll just have to try asking yourself mentally and waiting for an answer, but eventually you'll pick up on the different kinds of thoughts in your head and which ones are messages to your subconscious, which ones are messages from your subconscious, and which ones are just normal thoughts.
How to Hear the Answers
As mentioned above, meditation is pretty useful for building a link with your subconscious. Meditation by itself doesn't create the verbal link most are looking for though. Most people aren't happy with the way the subconscious delivers the messages so they create a mental device to translate the messages into words and sentences. If you combine this mental translator with the ability to listen without butting in, you'll easily be able to speak with your subconscious.
The only way to develop this mental device is to practice, as far as I know. Be in tune with your emotions and work on translating what you feel into words. Work on translating thought concepts as well. Some people think in words, some people think in emotion. Think in both. If you want your subconscious to speak to you in English, you need to give it the information to do so. What does "happy" feel like, and can you translate freely between "happy" and its emotion state? You'll notice while doing this that "happy" and many other words can have a lot of different emotions associated with it. The context of the word is generally what dictates the emotion. Don't just work on single word translations, but try to translate entire sentences into a single emotion. Work on translating a single emotion into sentences and paragraphs as well. You need to be able to rip an emotion apart and analyze every section of it.
The downside of this translation is that you lose some of the meaning. I've had conversations with my subconscious where I couldn't translate the emotion sent to me. It was too complex. I could feel it in a millisecond, but I couldn't put it into words without writing a book. The translator is nice, but don't force every emotion to go through it, because some just can't be understood with the English language. Also, don't blame your subconscious for shitty translation. Your subconscious will send you the emotion, and if you suck at translating and get the wrong message, that's your fault. When I first started talking with my subconscious, it would tell me "wrong" things and I got pissed. Eventually I found out that it was telling me the right things, I just sucked at translating it. Use your translator wisely - don't be dependant on it.
Benefits of the Link
What's so great about talking with your subconscious anyways? First, it has a great memory. My subconscious will speak up sometimes and say stuff like "Don't forget you have to call Kim about your job interview". Oh yeah! I can also program it to remind me of something at a specific time: "Hey, can you remind me I need to feed the dog at five o'clock?", "Sure". I've also programmed it to wake me up at certain times when I was first communicating with it just to fool around. What about psionic applications? Empathy and Telepathy rely heavily on translating images and emotions into words and the ability to think in different states and understand different thought formats. Learning new skills are a lot easier when you can tell your subconscious exactly what you need: "Rainsong was telling me about these things called 'force bubbles'. She says to create a psi ball with a shield around it that exerts force outwards. Let's try that". There are a thousand examples where my subconscious has helped me achieve something faster because I could tell it exactly what I wanted. By far though, the best thing that has resulted from my link is the deal I made with my subconscious.
The Deal
Honestly, one of the most useful things I've done my entire life is made a deal with my subconscious. It's pretty simple: I take care of "him", and "he" takes care of me. I suggest everyone make a similar deal with theirs. I can credit my college GPA to my subconscious' ability to take care of me. I've gone into tests knowing 20% of the material, and come out with a 90% grade. This past semester I got a B in both Biology and Asian Literature courtesy of my subconscious. I should have failed Biology and gotten at most a C in Asian Literature, but somehow I got one point over the grade cutoff in Biology and 0.2 points over the grade cutoff in Asian Lit. What's that mean? Had I missed one more question on any of the tests (in either class), I would have gotten a C. Coincidence? The semester I took Calculus based Physics, I went into the final exam knowing about 20% of the material, and it just so happens that the professor scheduled the final exam on a day that wasn't allowed by the University, so he was forced to make it optional. A professor whose been teaching for over 30 years makes a mistake like that on his own? I don't think so. These are just a few examples of grade-enhancement using the subconscious - I've got about a dozen others.
What else has the deal given me? Perfect timing. I walk to the busiest intersections and never have to wait for cars to clear out. I bump into a girl I've been thinking about on a campus with 30,000 students. I've forgotten to set my alarm for final exams and woken up when I'm supposed to, only to notice then that the alarm isn't set. Not just once either. Things just seem to work out in my favor all the time as well. I find eleven dollars on the ground in the middle of a city. I go get a drink at a bar and the bartender gives it to me for free. Why? "It's on the house". Ok!
That's only half the deal. What do I have to trade for this good fortune? Well, I have to help my subconscious out. I've gotten a lot of strange requests, but I do what I'm told. Nothing bad, and I suggest seeing a psychiatrist if your subconscious starts telling you to do bad things, but just weird. Commands like "walk faster", or "turn left", or "don't eat that, get this instead". Easy enough to perform, just might get you strange looks from someone watching you. "Bring that with you", "What am I going to need that for?", "Just bring it". Things that, as far as I know, have little to no affect, but it keeps my subconscious happy. Who knows, maybe I'm helping someone else who has a deal with their subconscious. I get anywhere from ten to twenty requests a day. My subconscious has even played a roll in this article: "Don't write that - write about this". Ok. After a while you stop asking "why" and just do it. Before you know it you have a successful website, healthy body, and good grades to show the parents.
Any last tips?
Meditate. I know it sucks. I know it's boring. But it does help a lot. You need to learn to shut your mind up - it is essential. The translator doesn't do you any good if you can't hear the messages in the first place.
Also, try manually translating your questions into emotions, and send the emotions to your subconscious. Your subconscious can get the wrong messages from your poor translation, so if you have a serious question that's pretty complex, translate it manually and make sure you have the right emotion before you send it to your subconscious. Don't be afraid to use images and other senses along with your emotions. Don't describe what something looks like, send an image. If you get good, you can start sending animations or three-dimensional areas.
Conclusion
I hope this article has helped those of you that wish to get some more control over your body and mind. The subconscious is like a computer - it will do exactly what you tell it to do. If you program it to alert you of simple things, then you'll get simple things. If you take more control and program it to send you complex data, then you'll get complex data. Don't be a lazy ass - things take time and effort, and this one is well worth it.
All of the exercises presented on PsiPog are great for accomplishing tasks and getting better using psi, but your subconscious is the gatekeeper. Basically, all the exercises are instructions to your subconscious to do something. Visualizations, anchoring, associations, and any other trick we can pull out of our sleeves are all geared at telling your subconscious what you want to do. You don't move the psi, you don't make the psi ball, you don't spin the pinwheel; your subconscious does.
This is a scary concept for some people. Some of us have the power to do some amazing things with our mind - what if our subconscious just decided to do these things without our permission? I've been mad enough at a person to think "I'm gonna kill you!" but of course I didn't mean it - what if my subconscious misunderstood? What if it thought I was giving it a command? Or what if my subconscious develops an attitude of it's own and decides by itself to hurt someone? It is a scary concept - but that's just more of a reason why we need to be able to communicate clearly with our subconscious and tell it what we really want. The subconscious mind is like a computer - it doesn't make decisions on it's own unless we program it to. Your subconscious is your responsibility, and the only way to know what is programmed in your head is to develop a link and check it out yourself.
"You're nuts - I control my body - my subconscious doesn't play that big of a role." Oh really? What do you do in life without first asking for something from your subconscious? You move your fingers, but do you send the electrical signals to your muscles? You walk to the store, but do you process the air you breath to give your legs energy? Even something as simple as thinking requires electricity and a specific balance of chemicals. It seems this "subconscious" isn't just a handy tool to manipulate for psionics - it's a part of everything you do. Communicating with your subconscious is vital for success in controlling your body and mind.
Not many people are comfortable with the idea of talking to themselves. I hear voices in my head, don't you? Society has branded us as crazy, but since we're already talking about moving things with our minds and reading another's mind, why let the immature labels stop you from learning about your own body? After all, this is your body, not society's, so it's good to keep tabs on what's going on inside of it. Not only that, but your subconscious is a part of you. It's not some external object or entity.* Nothing is wrong with exploring your own mind.
Right Now
The first thing to realize is that your subconscious is talking to you right now. It could be spattering off information you've requested without even realizing it, giving you a status report on a cut you have on your leg, or telling you to "scratch that itch". Ever think about how you know certain things? How do you know when you're hungry? How do you know when you have to go to the bathroom? How do you remember things? We take a lot of things for granted and have learned through bad habits to ignore messages that aren't vital to our existence. That song on the radio or that TV show is more important than how much water is in our system - let "someone else" take care of that, right? Oh hell no! Unfortunately, there are a lot of useful messages that aren't vital that we learn to ignore. Not only that, but the link goes both ways - once you get the hang of it, you're free to ask your subconscious questions along with receive these handy messages.
If your subconscious is talking right now, why don't you hear it? Most likely because you're thinking about ten thousand useless things at once and you drown it out. You won't hear it like you hear normal noises; it "talks" to you with flashes of emotion and thought concepts. It's talking to you right now, maybe if you listened you'd hear something. Ever notice meditation is aimed at getting your conscious mind shut up? Sylvia Boorstein is quoted saying, "Don't just do something. Sit there." We don't think it's great just because we're cruel and want you to sit in your room alone. Keep your mind still for five minutes and listen!
How I Started
What got me hooked? Quite frankly, I read this: http://www.robertpeterson.org/chap10.html. (if that link doesn't work for some reason, e-mail me and I can send you what's on that page at the time I'm writing this).
You start by asking yourself questions in your head and waiting for the answer. Start simple: "Am I hungry?". Or, how about something suggested on the link above: "What is love?". Now just wait for the answer. Don't create the answer - just listen for one to emerge. Chances are you won't hear anything, but you might feel something. You have a feeling for what "hungry" means and you intuitively know what "love" is, listen for these feelings and try to translate them into words. This is how I started, so this is the only way I know for someone else to do it. Get in the habit of talking to yourself and asking yourself questions, then learn to shut up and listen for the answer.
After a while you'll notice a difference between thinking and sending information to your subconscious. At first you'll just have to try asking yourself mentally and waiting for an answer, but eventually you'll pick up on the different kinds of thoughts in your head and which ones are messages to your subconscious, which ones are messages from your subconscious, and which ones are just normal thoughts.
How to Hear the Answers
As mentioned above, meditation is pretty useful for building a link with your subconscious. Meditation by itself doesn't create the verbal link most are looking for though. Most people aren't happy with the way the subconscious delivers the messages so they create a mental device to translate the messages into words and sentences. If you combine this mental translator with the ability to listen without butting in, you'll easily be able to speak with your subconscious.
The only way to develop this mental device is to practice, as far as I know. Be in tune with your emotions and work on translating what you feel into words. Work on translating thought concepts as well. Some people think in words, some people think in emotion. Think in both. If you want your subconscious to speak to you in English, you need to give it the information to do so. What does "happy" feel like, and can you translate freely between "happy" and its emotion state? You'll notice while doing this that "happy" and many other words can have a lot of different emotions associated with it. The context of the word is generally what dictates the emotion. Don't just work on single word translations, but try to translate entire sentences into a single emotion. Work on translating a single emotion into sentences and paragraphs as well. You need to be able to rip an emotion apart and analyze every section of it.
The downside of this translation is that you lose some of the meaning. I've had conversations with my subconscious where I couldn't translate the emotion sent to me. It was too complex. I could feel it in a millisecond, but I couldn't put it into words without writing a book. The translator is nice, but don't force every emotion to go through it, because some just can't be understood with the English language. Also, don't blame your subconscious for shitty translation. Your subconscious will send you the emotion, and if you suck at translating and get the wrong message, that's your fault. When I first started talking with my subconscious, it would tell me "wrong" things and I got pissed. Eventually I found out that it was telling me the right things, I just sucked at translating it. Use your translator wisely - don't be dependant on it.
Benefits of the Link
What's so great about talking with your subconscious anyways? First, it has a great memory. My subconscious will speak up sometimes and say stuff like "Don't forget you have to call Kim about your job interview". Oh yeah! I can also program it to remind me of something at a specific time: "Hey, can you remind me I need to feed the dog at five o'clock?", "Sure". I've also programmed it to wake me up at certain times when I was first communicating with it just to fool around. What about psionic applications? Empathy and Telepathy rely heavily on translating images and emotions into words and the ability to think in different states and understand different thought formats. Learning new skills are a lot easier when you can tell your subconscious exactly what you need: "Rainsong was telling me about these things called 'force bubbles'. She says to create a psi ball with a shield around it that exerts force outwards. Let's try that". There are a thousand examples where my subconscious has helped me achieve something faster because I could tell it exactly what I wanted. By far though, the best thing that has resulted from my link is the deal I made with my subconscious.
The Deal
Honestly, one of the most useful things I've done my entire life is made a deal with my subconscious. It's pretty simple: I take care of "him", and "he" takes care of me. I suggest everyone make a similar deal with theirs. I can credit my college GPA to my subconscious' ability to take care of me. I've gone into tests knowing 20% of the material, and come out with a 90% grade. This past semester I got a B in both Biology and Asian Literature courtesy of my subconscious. I should have failed Biology and gotten at most a C in Asian Literature, but somehow I got one point over the grade cutoff in Biology and 0.2 points over the grade cutoff in Asian Lit. What's that mean? Had I missed one more question on any of the tests (in either class), I would have gotten a C. Coincidence? The semester I took Calculus based Physics, I went into the final exam knowing about 20% of the material, and it just so happens that the professor scheduled the final exam on a day that wasn't allowed by the University, so he was forced to make it optional. A professor whose been teaching for over 30 years makes a mistake like that on his own? I don't think so. These are just a few examples of grade-enhancement using the subconscious - I've got about a dozen others.
What else has the deal given me? Perfect timing. I walk to the busiest intersections and never have to wait for cars to clear out. I bump into a girl I've been thinking about on a campus with 30,000 students. I've forgotten to set my alarm for final exams and woken up when I'm supposed to, only to notice then that the alarm isn't set. Not just once either. Things just seem to work out in my favor all the time as well. I find eleven dollars on the ground in the middle of a city. I go get a drink at a bar and the bartender gives it to me for free. Why? "It's on the house". Ok!
That's only half the deal. What do I have to trade for this good fortune? Well, I have to help my subconscious out. I've gotten a lot of strange requests, but I do what I'm told. Nothing bad, and I suggest seeing a psychiatrist if your subconscious starts telling you to do bad things, but just weird. Commands like "walk faster", or "turn left", or "don't eat that, get this instead". Easy enough to perform, just might get you strange looks from someone watching you. "Bring that with you", "What am I going to need that for?", "Just bring it". Things that, as far as I know, have little to no affect, but it keeps my subconscious happy. Who knows, maybe I'm helping someone else who has a deal with their subconscious. I get anywhere from ten to twenty requests a day. My subconscious has even played a roll in this article: "Don't write that - write about this". Ok. After a while you stop asking "why" and just do it. Before you know it you have a successful website, healthy body, and good grades to show the parents.
Any last tips?
Meditate. I know it sucks. I know it's boring. But it does help a lot. You need to learn to shut your mind up - it is essential. The translator doesn't do you any good if you can't hear the messages in the first place.
Also, try manually translating your questions into emotions, and send the emotions to your subconscious. Your subconscious can get the wrong messages from your poor translation, so if you have a serious question that's pretty complex, translate it manually and make sure you have the right emotion before you send it to your subconscious. Don't be afraid to use images and other senses along with your emotions. Don't describe what something looks like, send an image. If you get good, you can start sending animations or three-dimensional areas.
Conclusion
I hope this article has helped those of you that wish to get some more control over your body and mind. The subconscious is like a computer - it will do exactly what you tell it to do. If you program it to alert you of simple things, then you'll get simple things. If you take more control and program it to send you complex data, then you'll get complex data. Don't be a lazy ass - things take time and effort, and this one is well worth it.
A Guide To Dreaming
Introduction
What this is about
This Article
This is meant as a general lucid dream (LD) walkthrough. Lucid dreaming is being aware you're dreaming while still inside the dream. This article covers general subjects, and doesn't go too in-depth on anything in particular. It covers dream recall, induction techniques, control, and substances commonly referenced in dream enhancement.
Index
* Remembering Dreams
o Dream Recall
o Dream Journals
* Induction Techniques and Things Related to Them
o Relaxation
o Breathing
o Hypnagogia
o Autosuggestion
o DILD
+ Reality Checks
o WBTB
o MILD
o WILD
+ VILD
* Living the Dream
o Stabalizing Dreams
o Dream Possibilities
* Relatively Famous Substances
o Melatonin
o Calea Zacatechichi
Remembering Dreams
The difficult task of remembering that which is easily forgotten
Dream Recall
Dream recall is very important, because if you have an LD but can't remember what it was about, then what's the use? If you can't remember any dreams then that means you have probably looked at dreams as useless and in your head devalued it. To get a better dream recall you can just start thinking about it more. Start a dream journal, and when you first wake up don't move a muscle and try to remember last night's dreams. You can start with a small fragment and reverse through it and find out your dream. If you still have problems remembering then you should start consciously trying to remember your day, you can keep a notebook of your thoughts and events in that day. If you improve your daily memory it will carry over into the night and you will remember dreams with greater detail.
Some people will say things like "I don't dream," and the likes. But everyone does dream, and it is actually in a pretty rigid structure. The night, a normal 7 hour night, is split into five stages of sleep which repeat themselves five times. Stage 1 is drowsiness. This lasts from five to ten minutes and if one is awakened from it, it feels as if no sleep took place. Stage 2 is a period of light sleep with periods of muscle tone and muscle relaxation. The muscle tone can sometimes be attributed to auditory stimuli. Stage 3 and 4 are deep sleep stages. This is when brainwave activity reaches a low point. Stage 4 is generally more intense of a deep sleep than stage 3. Stage 5 is REM sleep, where the majority of dreaming takes place. Stages 1-4 are called non-REM sleep. The sleep cycle usually lasts 90-120 minutes before REM sleep begins. Each stage can take anywhere from five to fifteen minutes to complete, and during a normal stage the order is usually: waking, stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM. For some reason stage three and two seem to repeat themselves backwards before REM. After all cycles are completed that marks the first stage. This will happen five times a night with each successive REM cycle lasting longer than its previous stage.
When I first started trying to induce LD's I had no dream recall. I started a dream journal, stopped smoking, and starting consciously trying to piece together my dreams. They all have great results if you can stick to a routine everyday and get your mind used to recalling your dreams.
Dream Journals
A dream journal is very simple, it can be a basic notebook where you record your dreams in the morning. Or even a stack of papers, but most seem to prefer their computer. This practice will tell your subconscious that you want to remember your dreams. Thus adding value to your dreams, after doing it long enough you will notice profound memory increases. Most people start them with little or no dream recall and end up remembering all the dreams they have that night. There are no real rules and conditions on this, as long as you are writing them down and remembering more it will be good. For example: I write my dream notes down in a journal by my bed. This happens all through out the night and the next day I will try to remember more from my sparse notes and put it into a dream and onto my main internet journal.
Induction Techniques and Things Related to Them
Techniques used to induce lucid dreams
Relaxation
Relaxation is simple; this is you finding a comfortable position to sleep in. Most people need to have all joints in their body slightly bent to achieve sleep. You can start at your feet and tense them for a short time and then let go. You move up your legs, across your chest and back, up your arms, and finally up the neck onto the head. Then this leads to breathing to get into the right state of mind. I follow this method while I breathe deeply and slowly.
Breathing
Breathing for getting into a relaxed state for sleeping or going into WILD is easily achieved by letting your chest relax and breathing with your stomach. This is called circular breathing, and it's accomplished by using your abdominal region. It will inflate and when used with your diaphragm can be great for concentration. I usually relax all my muscles and focus on my breathing in this way until I get deeply into trance. My thoughts are cleared out and my breathing is all I focus on. Once I get there, I realize I can relax to another level, which leads me into hypnagogia.
Hypnagogia
This is an odd phenomenon experienced on the wake/asleep border. It can either be experienced when falling asleep and losing consciousness, or when waking up and regaining it. These are hypnagogic and hypnopompic occurrences, respectively. It is worth noting that hypnagogic experiences are much more common then hypnopompic. These periods are typically described as seeing flashes of vivid imagery, sometimes seemingly real. Sometimes people will also hear sounds, feel touch, and in even rarer cases, smell and taste. These are all hallucinations, and can not hurt you.
Autosuggestion
This is training the subconscious to believe something. There are various methods, from constantly repeating something to yourself until you believe it, to hypnosis. This subconscious belief can be used for many things in life. It can also be used to induce lucid dreams, and I haven't tried for anything else in Psionics, but it would probably affect most if not all other areas of Psionics as well. I have used this in many forms, from telling myself something as part of MILD to hypnosis and brainwave alteration. I have also tried subliminal messaging. The first few have all given me results - I am still testing the subliminal messaging idea, but as of yet, it hasn't produced anything.
DILD
DILD stands for Dream Induced Lucid Dream, which means you are in a dream and realize you are dreaming. This is usually done by conditioning yourself to do reality checks. Ask if you're awake or asleep. This is often the easiest method and will happen as a side effect of any LD training. My first LD was a DILD and was very stable because of when it took place during my REM cycle. Not much can be done besides doing reality checks constantly and always questioning reality. It is also worthy of note that most lucid dreams are DILD's.
Reality Checks
Reality checks are a simple test to see if you are dreaming. They all work on one principle, that dreams are unstable. For them to be effective you should use a few in combinations, because sometimes your dream will stabilize certain aspects to trick you. Here's a short list of reality checks:
* Hold your nose closed or go underwater, if you can still breathe then you are dreaming.
* Try to jump, if anything strange happens you are dreaming.
* Read stuff, if small print changes as you look away or are looking you are probably dreaming.
* If your vision is perfect but you don't have perfect vision, you are probably dreaming.
* Examine your hands; they can usually be pretty obvious. Sometimes changing color and size or growing an extra finger.
* The time, always check the time. Clocks will change at random times, have improper numbers, or simply change as you look at them.
* Try to visualize using powers, in a dream they will often manifest themselves fairly quickly.
* Try a light switch here and there; they usually don't work in dreams. This isn't an absolute however, and they do occasionally work.
* Check your reflection; usually your dream will have trouble keeping that constant.
* If you close one eye, can you see your nose? If not you're probably dreaming.
* Try to remember things like; why you are there, how you got there, what you were doing 1,2,3 or hours ago... etc.
* Try biting your lower lip and really experiencing any minor pains.
* Be creative and just do things you can't do while awake.
Personally, I will do both nose reality checks and just try to remember all my reasons for being somewhere. I do this all through out the day to condition my mind to do it while I'm dreaming. Unless you are using WILD or can easily recognize being in a dream, reality checks will be your main test. Even with WILD I highly suggest reality checks though, only the more experienced or naturally born lucid dreamers can become lucid without them.
WBTB
WBTB Stands for Wake Back To Bed. In my opinion the easiest method to learn and practice, it is basically getting up a certain amount of time into your sleep cycle, before your longest REM periods. You then think about having a lucid dream and try to awaken your mind while leaving your body sleepy. You then go back to bed. Here is a very good walkthrough on how to do it. In my experience, you don't always need to stay up that long, or take a shower. The entire point of both of those is to wake up your mind and keep your body asleep. If you think your mind is sufficiently awake after 45, 30, 15 or even 10 minutes, then try it out. This is a very relative technique. It's worked for me when all I've done is wake up to an alarm; reset it for a few hours later, then go back to sleep. I didn't even repeat anything to myself, and I got a lucid dream. WBTB is very powerful in my opinion.
MILD
MILD stands for Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream. Created by Stephen LaBerge, it was and still is a very effective method of induction. Peebrain recently posted it as an article, so I won't go in depth with this technique. In short, this method is effectively training your memory to prepare for a lucid dream, and then repeating to yourself that you will have a lucid dream before you fall asleep. I tried a cut down version of this where I simply kept repeating something to myself as I fell asleep. It gave me some results, and is still my best way of getting better dream recall.
WILD
WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream. It is going straight from consciousness to a dream, and is a very efficient method once you have it down. To start you relax and do very relaxed and controlled breathing. You have to stay conscious for long enough to recognize the state of hypnagogia and pass through it. It manifests as a hallucination, and could be tactile, visual, or auditory. To stay conscious many people deploy many different methods. The most common being to count 1 I'm dreaming, 2 I'm dreaming, 3 I'm dreaming... etc. This should be repeated while you remain calm and motionless, remembering to not react to any sensations and just observe. When you get close you really have to focus on the mantra and remember that you are dreaming. Once this is completed and the border is crossed, you will be dreaming.
WILD is a very difficult technique to master, and takes time and dedication. It is a lot easier to perform after a WBTB, but can be practiced every time you are going to sleep. What I have here is only personal reflection and methods that have given results. It will be different for everyone so if you're having difficulty with something here then tweak it and experiment to find out what will work for you. This isn't to say you should skip around with techniques. Test them out, and stick with one you like. The longer you're with a specific technique, the better you get at it and the greater chance you will be lucid more often.
VILD
VILD Stands for Visually Incubated Lucid Dream. Everything you could ever want to know about VILD is here. That's in depth walkthrough from its creator. If you don't want to read that large article, I will give you a small version of VILD. First, you incubate a dream. Incubation is thinking about a specific dream situation, imagining all the details as you fall asleep, the idea being that you will dream about the situation. For example, I might think of a small room with a door, and a sign above the door that says "do a reality check!" I would think about every aspect of this, and play out a short little scene of me appearing there, looking at the sign, reality checking, and becoming lucid. I have not practiced this extensively, but from my limited experience, I haven't had much success. Those results are hardly meaningful, however. This is sometimes the best technique for more visual people.
Living the Dream
How to control dreams and the general flow of dreams
Stabalizing Dreams
Stabilizing dreams is what it sounds like, making a dream less frantic and prolonging your lucidity by doing something in the dream. There are many ways to go about this, the better known ways being: Look at your hands. They're always there, right? (hehe) They will probably be messed up in some way, and might begin to melt. This will solidify the fact that you are dreaming, and will keep you concentrating on the dream.
Another popular and effective method is spinning. You start yourself spinning around like a whirlwind, and keep speeding up until everything blurs and then fades to black. Or you can stop earlier, either one will increase your lucidity. But if you wait till everything blacks out, you will most likely change your location in the dream world. Also, when I say spin, you might think: "how can I spin that fast?" All you have to do is think about it. False awakenings are also side effects of this technique, so make sure to reality check after doing it if you wake up.
Yet another way of stabilizing dreams is to say out loud to yourself something pertaining to staying lucid, like "I will stay in this dream!" or "Lucidity x1000!" Stuff like that.
A final, more desperate way of staying in the dream is to grab some dream scenery. Feel everything that makes up this scenery, the texture, the weight, the smell, etc. Focus on it with all of your dream senses. This is basically like playing tug of war with your conscious. It wants to go back to sleep. You want to stay awake (in the dream) the only question is, who can pull harder?
Dream Possibilities
Dreams are crazy things where everything is possible, and all too often everything will happen. Luckily not all at once. Things don't have to make sense or even approach it; in fact, they usually stay far away from it. Here is an example:
You could be walking downtown, when a bus pulls up and demands your liver. You of course, want set the bus on fire, and commence to throw gasoline (that you got from nowhere) onto it. The bus turns into a transformer and you stand in awe for a moment, and then you burn it anyways. But it doesn't really burn, it kind of shape shifts into a fire breathing dragon. Great you say, as you slap shut your faceplate on your armor. "That dragon will be the fifth one today." With that you charge at it on your horse.
That is a random example, but it's not far fetched at all. Stuff just happens, and the dream usually goes with it. Sometimes, however, the dream just kind of "skips" and you end up in a completely new area or situation. For example you're talking at a party then you're swimming in the ocean. There is no blackout period; it just goes seamlessly from one to another. This is much less common in lucid dreams, but "blipping" is all too common in normal dreams. Another thing about blipping, if you look at something, you all too often become part of what's going on. Never try watching TV unless you want to become part of the show.
This brings up dream control. If you expect something to happen, it will. Bottom line: If you honestly think that the dragon mentioned earlier will turn into a goldfish when your lance hits it, it will. If you expect a jet pack to appear in front of you, it will. Some people have trouble with this, and a nice way around it is to simply expect them to be behind you. When you turn around, or go around a corner, or behind something, it will be there. This brings us to a useful way of traveling.
You can go anywhere in the dream world simply by finding a door, and expecting a certain place to be on the other side of it. It doesn't have to make sense. You could go from a city to a desert. If you've seen the movie Matrix Reloaded, it's like that endless hallway of doors. They go everywhere. But in the dream, you only need one. You don't even have to use a door, use a portal, a sewer grate, a mirror. The mirror is especially popular, although it has this nasty habit of putting you in weird places that you didn't exactly want.
One last topic of dream control is special "powers". As far as supernatural abilities go, you can do them all. Anything that has ever been conceived, you can perform it. I have yet to find an exception to this rule. The only problem is getting the ability right. But that stems from personal control, not dream limitations. As far as dream limitations go, there basically aren't any.
Relatively Famous Substances
Substances that commonly receive praise as dream enhancers
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone that is secreted by the Pineal gland each night. It does many things in the body, including regulating sleep cycles, which is why it interests us in this article. It is called the "hormone of darkness" because light inhibits its production. It has been said to improve dreaming, and is sold as a sleeping aid in most drugstores. I cannot say from personal experience whether this is true or not, but from what I've heard from people who have taken it, it makes it harder to wake up from the very vivid dreams. I.e., it increases stability. I personally do not think it influences whether you realize you are dreaming or not, but that's my opinion. It should also be noted that most supplements have a huge dose in relation to what the Pineal glad secretes each night. During the night your pineal gland produces anywhere from 5 to 25 micrograms of Melatonin. The supplements usually have 1000 to 3000 micrograms. Also, all of the supplements I've seen recommend you do not take melatonin until you are 18 or older. Some even say 21.
Calea Zacatechichi
This is a very special plant to the native peoples of the world. It is known as the dream herb in Mexico and Central America, where shamans and others of the tribe will use it for entering a dream state to receive prophetic visions. The dried leaves can be boiled in water to produce a tea, and should be used in conjunction with a small joint of the dried leaves. Most people who use a larger amount of one or the other seem to have fewer results. This should be taken right before sleep because of its mild waking effects, but profound dream effects. I am not telling anyone to try it; I'm just giving out the information so you can all make more informed choices. For more information on it, a search at erowid will be helpful. I haven't tried this yet, but I will be growing my own bushes of it soon. Erowid has plenty of write-ups for personal experiences with it. Remember: Be responsible.
What this is about
This Article
This is meant as a general lucid dream (LD) walkthrough. Lucid dreaming is being aware you're dreaming while still inside the dream. This article covers general subjects, and doesn't go too in-depth on anything in particular. It covers dream recall, induction techniques, control, and substances commonly referenced in dream enhancement.
Index
* Remembering Dreams
o Dream Recall
o Dream Journals
* Induction Techniques and Things Related to Them
o Relaxation
o Breathing
o Hypnagogia
o Autosuggestion
o DILD
+ Reality Checks
o WBTB
o MILD
o WILD
+ VILD
* Living the Dream
o Stabalizing Dreams
o Dream Possibilities
* Relatively Famous Substances
o Melatonin
o Calea Zacatechichi
Remembering Dreams
The difficult task of remembering that which is easily forgotten
Dream Recall
Dream recall is very important, because if you have an LD but can't remember what it was about, then what's the use? If you can't remember any dreams then that means you have probably looked at dreams as useless and in your head devalued it. To get a better dream recall you can just start thinking about it more. Start a dream journal, and when you first wake up don't move a muscle and try to remember last night's dreams. You can start with a small fragment and reverse through it and find out your dream. If you still have problems remembering then you should start consciously trying to remember your day, you can keep a notebook of your thoughts and events in that day. If you improve your daily memory it will carry over into the night and you will remember dreams with greater detail.
Some people will say things like "I don't dream," and the likes. But everyone does dream, and it is actually in a pretty rigid structure. The night, a normal 7 hour night, is split into five stages of sleep which repeat themselves five times. Stage 1 is drowsiness. This lasts from five to ten minutes and if one is awakened from it, it feels as if no sleep took place. Stage 2 is a period of light sleep with periods of muscle tone and muscle relaxation. The muscle tone can sometimes be attributed to auditory stimuli. Stage 3 and 4 are deep sleep stages. This is when brainwave activity reaches a low point. Stage 4 is generally more intense of a deep sleep than stage 3. Stage 5 is REM sleep, where the majority of dreaming takes place. Stages 1-4 are called non-REM sleep. The sleep cycle usually lasts 90-120 minutes before REM sleep begins. Each stage can take anywhere from five to fifteen minutes to complete, and during a normal stage the order is usually: waking, stage 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM. For some reason stage three and two seem to repeat themselves backwards before REM. After all cycles are completed that marks the first stage. This will happen five times a night with each successive REM cycle lasting longer than its previous stage.
When I first started trying to induce LD's I had no dream recall. I started a dream journal, stopped smoking, and starting consciously trying to piece together my dreams. They all have great results if you can stick to a routine everyday and get your mind used to recalling your dreams.
Dream Journals
A dream journal is very simple, it can be a basic notebook where you record your dreams in the morning. Or even a stack of papers, but most seem to prefer their computer. This practice will tell your subconscious that you want to remember your dreams. Thus adding value to your dreams, after doing it long enough you will notice profound memory increases. Most people start them with little or no dream recall and end up remembering all the dreams they have that night. There are no real rules and conditions on this, as long as you are writing them down and remembering more it will be good. For example: I write my dream notes down in a journal by my bed. This happens all through out the night and the next day I will try to remember more from my sparse notes and put it into a dream and onto my main internet journal.
Induction Techniques and Things Related to Them
Techniques used to induce lucid dreams
Relaxation
Relaxation is simple; this is you finding a comfortable position to sleep in. Most people need to have all joints in their body slightly bent to achieve sleep. You can start at your feet and tense them for a short time and then let go. You move up your legs, across your chest and back, up your arms, and finally up the neck onto the head. Then this leads to breathing to get into the right state of mind. I follow this method while I breathe deeply and slowly.
Breathing
Breathing for getting into a relaxed state for sleeping or going into WILD is easily achieved by letting your chest relax and breathing with your stomach. This is called circular breathing, and it's accomplished by using your abdominal region. It will inflate and when used with your diaphragm can be great for concentration. I usually relax all my muscles and focus on my breathing in this way until I get deeply into trance. My thoughts are cleared out and my breathing is all I focus on. Once I get there, I realize I can relax to another level, which leads me into hypnagogia.
Hypnagogia
This is an odd phenomenon experienced on the wake/asleep border. It can either be experienced when falling asleep and losing consciousness, or when waking up and regaining it. These are hypnagogic and hypnopompic occurrences, respectively. It is worth noting that hypnagogic experiences are much more common then hypnopompic. These periods are typically described as seeing flashes of vivid imagery, sometimes seemingly real. Sometimes people will also hear sounds, feel touch, and in even rarer cases, smell and taste. These are all hallucinations, and can not hurt you.
Autosuggestion
This is training the subconscious to believe something. There are various methods, from constantly repeating something to yourself until you believe it, to hypnosis. This subconscious belief can be used for many things in life. It can also be used to induce lucid dreams, and I haven't tried for anything else in Psionics, but it would probably affect most if not all other areas of Psionics as well. I have used this in many forms, from telling myself something as part of MILD to hypnosis and brainwave alteration. I have also tried subliminal messaging. The first few have all given me results - I am still testing the subliminal messaging idea, but as of yet, it hasn't produced anything.
DILD
DILD stands for Dream Induced Lucid Dream, which means you are in a dream and realize you are dreaming. This is usually done by conditioning yourself to do reality checks. Ask if you're awake or asleep. This is often the easiest method and will happen as a side effect of any LD training. My first LD was a DILD and was very stable because of when it took place during my REM cycle. Not much can be done besides doing reality checks constantly and always questioning reality. It is also worthy of note that most lucid dreams are DILD's.
Reality Checks
Reality checks are a simple test to see if you are dreaming. They all work on one principle, that dreams are unstable. For them to be effective you should use a few in combinations, because sometimes your dream will stabilize certain aspects to trick you. Here's a short list of reality checks:
* Hold your nose closed or go underwater, if you can still breathe then you are dreaming.
* Try to jump, if anything strange happens you are dreaming.
* Read stuff, if small print changes as you look away or are looking you are probably dreaming.
* If your vision is perfect but you don't have perfect vision, you are probably dreaming.
* Examine your hands; they can usually be pretty obvious. Sometimes changing color and size or growing an extra finger.
* The time, always check the time. Clocks will change at random times, have improper numbers, or simply change as you look at them.
* Try to visualize using powers, in a dream they will often manifest themselves fairly quickly.
* Try a light switch here and there; they usually don't work in dreams. This isn't an absolute however, and they do occasionally work.
* Check your reflection; usually your dream will have trouble keeping that constant.
* If you close one eye, can you see your nose? If not you're probably dreaming.
* Try to remember things like; why you are there, how you got there, what you were doing 1,2,3 or hours ago... etc.
* Try biting your lower lip and really experiencing any minor pains.
* Be creative and just do things you can't do while awake.
Personally, I will do both nose reality checks and just try to remember all my reasons for being somewhere. I do this all through out the day to condition my mind to do it while I'm dreaming. Unless you are using WILD or can easily recognize being in a dream, reality checks will be your main test. Even with WILD I highly suggest reality checks though, only the more experienced or naturally born lucid dreamers can become lucid without them.
WBTB
WBTB Stands for Wake Back To Bed. In my opinion the easiest method to learn and practice, it is basically getting up a certain amount of time into your sleep cycle, before your longest REM periods. You then think about having a lucid dream and try to awaken your mind while leaving your body sleepy. You then go back to bed. Here is a very good walkthrough on how to do it. In my experience, you don't always need to stay up that long, or take a shower. The entire point of both of those is to wake up your mind and keep your body asleep. If you think your mind is sufficiently awake after 45, 30, 15 or even 10 minutes, then try it out. This is a very relative technique. It's worked for me when all I've done is wake up to an alarm; reset it for a few hours later, then go back to sleep. I didn't even repeat anything to myself, and I got a lucid dream. WBTB is very powerful in my opinion.
MILD
MILD stands for Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream. Created by Stephen LaBerge, it was and still is a very effective method of induction. Peebrain recently posted it as an article, so I won't go in depth with this technique. In short, this method is effectively training your memory to prepare for a lucid dream, and then repeating to yourself that you will have a lucid dream before you fall asleep. I tried a cut down version of this where I simply kept repeating something to myself as I fell asleep. It gave me some results, and is still my best way of getting better dream recall.
WILD
WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream. It is going straight from consciousness to a dream, and is a very efficient method once you have it down. To start you relax and do very relaxed and controlled breathing. You have to stay conscious for long enough to recognize the state of hypnagogia and pass through it. It manifests as a hallucination, and could be tactile, visual, or auditory. To stay conscious many people deploy many different methods. The most common being to count 1 I'm dreaming, 2 I'm dreaming, 3 I'm dreaming... etc. This should be repeated while you remain calm and motionless, remembering to not react to any sensations and just observe. When you get close you really have to focus on the mantra and remember that you are dreaming. Once this is completed and the border is crossed, you will be dreaming.
WILD is a very difficult technique to master, and takes time and dedication. It is a lot easier to perform after a WBTB, but can be practiced every time you are going to sleep. What I have here is only personal reflection and methods that have given results. It will be different for everyone so if you're having difficulty with something here then tweak it and experiment to find out what will work for you. This isn't to say you should skip around with techniques. Test them out, and stick with one you like. The longer you're with a specific technique, the better you get at it and the greater chance you will be lucid more often.
VILD
VILD Stands for Visually Incubated Lucid Dream. Everything you could ever want to know about VILD is here. That's in depth walkthrough from its creator. If you don't want to read that large article, I will give you a small version of VILD. First, you incubate a dream. Incubation is thinking about a specific dream situation, imagining all the details as you fall asleep, the idea being that you will dream about the situation. For example, I might think of a small room with a door, and a sign above the door that says "do a reality check!" I would think about every aspect of this, and play out a short little scene of me appearing there, looking at the sign, reality checking, and becoming lucid. I have not practiced this extensively, but from my limited experience, I haven't had much success. Those results are hardly meaningful, however. This is sometimes the best technique for more visual people.
Living the Dream
How to control dreams and the general flow of dreams
Stabalizing Dreams
Stabilizing dreams is what it sounds like, making a dream less frantic and prolonging your lucidity by doing something in the dream. There are many ways to go about this, the better known ways being: Look at your hands. They're always there, right? (hehe) They will probably be messed up in some way, and might begin to melt. This will solidify the fact that you are dreaming, and will keep you concentrating on the dream.
Another popular and effective method is spinning. You start yourself spinning around like a whirlwind, and keep speeding up until everything blurs and then fades to black. Or you can stop earlier, either one will increase your lucidity. But if you wait till everything blacks out, you will most likely change your location in the dream world. Also, when I say spin, you might think: "how can I spin that fast?" All you have to do is think about it. False awakenings are also side effects of this technique, so make sure to reality check after doing it if you wake up.
Yet another way of stabilizing dreams is to say out loud to yourself something pertaining to staying lucid, like "I will stay in this dream!" or "Lucidity x1000!" Stuff like that.
A final, more desperate way of staying in the dream is to grab some dream scenery. Feel everything that makes up this scenery, the texture, the weight, the smell, etc. Focus on it with all of your dream senses. This is basically like playing tug of war with your conscious. It wants to go back to sleep. You want to stay awake (in the dream) the only question is, who can pull harder?
Dream Possibilities
Dreams are crazy things where everything is possible, and all too often everything will happen. Luckily not all at once. Things don't have to make sense or even approach it; in fact, they usually stay far away from it. Here is an example:
You could be walking downtown, when a bus pulls up and demands your liver. You of course, want set the bus on fire, and commence to throw gasoline (that you got from nowhere) onto it. The bus turns into a transformer and you stand in awe for a moment, and then you burn it anyways. But it doesn't really burn, it kind of shape shifts into a fire breathing dragon. Great you say, as you slap shut your faceplate on your armor. "That dragon will be the fifth one today." With that you charge at it on your horse.
That is a random example, but it's not far fetched at all. Stuff just happens, and the dream usually goes with it. Sometimes, however, the dream just kind of "skips" and you end up in a completely new area or situation. For example you're talking at a party then you're swimming in the ocean. There is no blackout period; it just goes seamlessly from one to another. This is much less common in lucid dreams, but "blipping" is all too common in normal dreams. Another thing about blipping, if you look at something, you all too often become part of what's going on. Never try watching TV unless you want to become part of the show.
This brings up dream control. If you expect something to happen, it will. Bottom line: If you honestly think that the dragon mentioned earlier will turn into a goldfish when your lance hits it, it will. If you expect a jet pack to appear in front of you, it will. Some people have trouble with this, and a nice way around it is to simply expect them to be behind you. When you turn around, or go around a corner, or behind something, it will be there. This brings us to a useful way of traveling.
You can go anywhere in the dream world simply by finding a door, and expecting a certain place to be on the other side of it. It doesn't have to make sense. You could go from a city to a desert. If you've seen the movie Matrix Reloaded, it's like that endless hallway of doors. They go everywhere. But in the dream, you only need one. You don't even have to use a door, use a portal, a sewer grate, a mirror. The mirror is especially popular, although it has this nasty habit of putting you in weird places that you didn't exactly want.
One last topic of dream control is special "powers". As far as supernatural abilities go, you can do them all. Anything that has ever been conceived, you can perform it. I have yet to find an exception to this rule. The only problem is getting the ability right. But that stems from personal control, not dream limitations. As far as dream limitations go, there basically aren't any.
Relatively Famous Substances
Substances that commonly receive praise as dream enhancers
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone that is secreted by the Pineal gland each night. It does many things in the body, including regulating sleep cycles, which is why it interests us in this article. It is called the "hormone of darkness" because light inhibits its production. It has been said to improve dreaming, and is sold as a sleeping aid in most drugstores. I cannot say from personal experience whether this is true or not, but from what I've heard from people who have taken it, it makes it harder to wake up from the very vivid dreams. I.e., it increases stability. I personally do not think it influences whether you realize you are dreaming or not, but that's my opinion. It should also be noted that most supplements have a huge dose in relation to what the Pineal glad secretes each night. During the night your pineal gland produces anywhere from 5 to 25 micrograms of Melatonin. The supplements usually have 1000 to 3000 micrograms. Also, all of the supplements I've seen recommend you do not take melatonin until you are 18 or older. Some even say 21.
Calea Zacatechichi
This is a very special plant to the native peoples of the world. It is known as the dream herb in Mexico and Central America, where shamans and others of the tribe will use it for entering a dream state to receive prophetic visions. The dried leaves can be boiled in water to produce a tea, and should be used in conjunction with a small joint of the dried leaves. Most people who use a larger amount of one or the other seem to have fewer results. This should be taken right before sleep because of its mild waking effects, but profound dream effects. I am not telling anyone to try it; I'm just giving out the information so you can all make more informed choices. For more information on it, a search at erowid will be helpful. I haven't tried this yet, but I will be growing my own bushes of it soon. Erowid has plenty of write-ups for personal experiences with it. Remember: Be responsible.
How to expand your mind
Once again I speak to you guys about Telekinesis / Psychokinesis. In this manual I'll try to be more specific and explain my method to do TK, as easily understandable as possible.
Some of you might know that I have a TK club in my school and I am proud to say that many of my students progressed a lot since we started to have the meetings. So basically you have very good chances, too. TK can be taught and it can be learned. The only serious difficulty I think is that you mostly don't know anyone who could show you how TK is done. I personally know a girl who could do TK almost instantly after having seen it in action in one of our meetings. Later she had problems like everyone else, too, but that's not the point. The point is that sometimes people can repeat it instantly if they see it. Don't ask me why. I don't know.
As I said, you have very good chances... Ahemm, let me put it this way: You can do it. And you will do it. The effort is the key. The result is proportional to the effort you invest. But before I start to explain my method to "perform" TK, I'd like to express some theories that in one way or another might explain how TK itself works. I might be wrong and you are welcome to prove such.
I personally have never seen any 100% evidence that confirms that there is an invisible substance created by the nerves called "psi". And I doubt that this substance is responsible for telekinesis as well as for telepathy & co. And since we are the people who do the research, I don't think it's good to rely on the legends, or facts, that "The Russians" or "The CIA" might have done some kind of experiments that prove the whole "psi" thing.
But anyway, the "how" or "why" telekinesis works does not affect your practice in any way. I just think that it might help you to understand my method and therefore get a good basis to start with.
http://www.psipog.net/
Some of you might know that I have a TK club in my school and I am proud to say that many of my students progressed a lot since we started to have the meetings. So basically you have very good chances, too. TK can be taught and it can be learned. The only serious difficulty I think is that you mostly don't know anyone who could show you how TK is done. I personally know a girl who could do TK almost instantly after having seen it in action in one of our meetings. Later she had problems like everyone else, too, but that's not the point. The point is that sometimes people can repeat it instantly if they see it. Don't ask me why. I don't know.
As I said, you have very good chances... Ahemm, let me put it this way: You can do it. And you will do it. The effort is the key. The result is proportional to the effort you invest. But before I start to explain my method to "perform" TK, I'd like to express some theories that in one way or another might explain how TK itself works. I might be wrong and you are welcome to prove such.
I personally have never seen any 100% evidence that confirms that there is an invisible substance created by the nerves called "psi". And I doubt that this substance is responsible for telekinesis as well as for telepathy & co. And since we are the people who do the research, I don't think it's good to rely on the legends, or facts, that "The Russians" or "The CIA" might have done some kind of experiments that prove the whole "psi" thing.
But anyway, the "how" or "why" telekinesis works does not affect your practice in any way. I just think that it might help you to understand my method and therefore get a good basis to start with.
http://www.psipog.net/
NI's Telekinesis Training Manual
Step 1: Prepare yourself
Energy flows where attention goes. Just remember it for now. You don't have enough power if there are other things in your mind.
But how exactly do you calm down, clear your mind and raise your concentration / attention / focus level at the same time? You guessed it: meditation. I suggest the meditation techniques which are more passive and don't require much brain activity. An example is the candle method. You don't even really need a candle, only a point somewhere that is brighter than the environment. For example, a clear coin reflecting the sun's light. You sit down, take few deep breaths and watch it. Don't control your eyes; allow them to lose their focus. The bright point is relaxing for your subconscious. Don't try to think just watch. With some practice you'll just forget about everything around you, and lose yourself. The breathing will become deeper, the mind clear and your whole state calmed.
Another good method is where you concentrate on your deep, slow breathing. This one seems more difficult to me. It's mostly done with closed eyes and the mind starts to wander easily if your eyes are closed.
No matter which meditation method you practice, it'll help you to get the right state of mind and the basics needed for telekinesis. I suggest you meditate 20-30 minutes before you start.
By the way, when you practice telekinesis it's very important not to drain yourself. A drained mind tends to lead to depression & frustration. And if you are frustrated, you have zero chances to move it, believe me.Therefore, it's important that you don't train more than 1 hour in one sitting. I suggest 30-40 minutes. If you are a wild one, you can practice 40 minutes in the morning and another 40 in the evening .
Having established the times when you want to practice, it's time to prepare the instrument you want to practice with. There are many possibilities like keys on strings or needles floating on the water's surface. I recommend you take the most popular one: the psiwheel / paper on pin. But I suggest you to take aluminum foil instead of normal paper. You have to be careful making it, one wrong movement and you have a hole inside of the foil. Take a piece of 1.5-2.0 cm (inches?). This is optimal for the psiwheel and extremely easy to move. The friction between the aluminum surface and the metal pin is less than paper's friction.
Having finished to meditate and having prepared your psiwheel, it's time to start.
Energy flows where attention goes. Just remember it for now. You don't have enough power if there are other things in your mind.
But how exactly do you calm down, clear your mind and raise your concentration / attention / focus level at the same time? You guessed it: meditation. I suggest the meditation techniques which are more passive and don't require much brain activity. An example is the candle method. You don't even really need a candle, only a point somewhere that is brighter than the environment. For example, a clear coin reflecting the sun's light. You sit down, take few deep breaths and watch it. Don't control your eyes; allow them to lose their focus. The bright point is relaxing for your subconscious. Don't try to think just watch. With some practice you'll just forget about everything around you, and lose yourself. The breathing will become deeper, the mind clear and your whole state calmed.
Another good method is where you concentrate on your deep, slow breathing. This one seems more difficult to me. It's mostly done with closed eyes and the mind starts to wander easily if your eyes are closed.
No matter which meditation method you practice, it'll help you to get the right state of mind and the basics needed for telekinesis. I suggest you meditate 20-30 minutes before you start.
By the way, when you practice telekinesis it's very important not to drain yourself. A drained mind tends to lead to depression & frustration. And if you are frustrated, you have zero chances to move it, believe me.Therefore, it's important that you don't train more than 1 hour in one sitting. I suggest 30-40 minutes. If you are a wild one, you can practice 40 minutes in the morning and another 40 in the evening .
Having established the times when you want to practice, it's time to prepare the instrument you want to practice with. There are many possibilities like keys on strings or needles floating on the water's surface. I recommend you take the most popular one: the psiwheel / paper on pin. But I suggest you to take aluminum foil instead of normal paper. You have to be careful making it, one wrong movement and you have a hole inside of the foil. Take a piece of 1.5-2.0 cm (inches?). This is optimal for the psiwheel and extremely easy to move. The friction between the aluminum surface and the metal pin is less than paper's friction.
Having finished to meditate and having prepared your psiwheel, it's time to start.
Step 2: Become one
As the next step you basically have to realize the first principle and apply it. Remember: there is no separation between you and the psiwheel. It lies inside of your capacity field like your fingers or any other part of your body. What you do is to take few deep breaths and focus on the object.
You tell yourself that the psiwheel is a part of you. Try to find a link between you and the psiwheel. Try to feel what it is like to be the psiwheel (Laughter in the auditorium)... I'm dead serious. Try to see all the little features the psiwheel has. Try to remember how the psiwheel moves and define it as your own movement... Try to hear the sounds it may produce. Try to see it in your head from different viewpoints, without actually moving yourself. Try to sense its surface as you sense the surface of your skin...
It's difficult to explain, but all those things together, when you focus hard enough, give you (after some time) a strong feeling of the object, the psiwheel. Even a feeling of power may overwhelm you. A feeling where you are 100% sure you can influence it. A feeling where you really feel that you are one with it. A feeling that becomes stronger and more solid as you keep practicing.
After some time it'll become relatively easy to "sense" the objects you concentrate on. You'll see a tree and get an instant inner feeling of it. You'll get better at it every time you try it.
There might even come a point where you can feel your whole surroundings, your environment, at the same time. Some time ago I saw a TV report about a group in Germany where a professor of anthropology teaches the people to "see" without using their eyes. His students can actually see in a 360-degree perspective and even read books without opening their eyes.
Now when you get a good, stable, strong feeling of the psiwheel, then you have established something I call energy link between the object and yourself. If the link is weak or relatively unstable it'll be more difficult to make the psiwheel spin later.
You tell yourself that the psiwheel is a part of you. Try to find a link between you and the psiwheel. Try to feel what it is like to be the psiwheel (Laughter in the auditorium)... I'm dead serious. Try to see all the little features the psiwheel has. Try to remember how the psiwheel moves and define it as your own movement... Try to hear the sounds it may produce. Try to see it in your head from different viewpoints, without actually moving yourself. Try to sense its surface as you sense the surface of your skin...
It's difficult to explain, but all those things together, when you focus hard enough, give you (after some time) a strong feeling of the object, the psiwheel. Even a feeling of power may overwhelm you. A feeling where you are 100% sure you can influence it. A feeling where you really feel that you are one with it. A feeling that becomes stronger and more solid as you keep practicing.
After some time it'll become relatively easy to "sense" the objects you concentrate on. You'll see a tree and get an instant inner feeling of it. You'll get better at it every time you try it.
There might even come a point where you can feel your whole surroundings, your environment, at the same time. Some time ago I saw a TV report about a group in Germany where a professor of anthropology teaches the people to "see" without using their eyes. His students can actually see in a 360-degree perspective and even read books without opening their eyes.
Now when you get a good, stable, strong feeling of the psiwheel, then you have established something I call energy link between the object and yourself. If the link is weak or relatively unstable it'll be more difficult to make the psiwheel spin later.
Step 3: Move it
Now you have established a good energy link. You can feel the object. You are one with it. At this point, as mentioned earlier, you might notice a strong feeling of power over the psiwheel. It's like if you look at your hand and are sure that the next moment you are going to move it. This might cause even random reactions of your body: you try to move the psiwheel and suddenly your hand moves forward. When these random movements happen, you just have to relax and try to "sense" the object better. They happen only because you are too excited and you have to calm down.
Don't worry about the need to move the psiwheel. It's not exactly like moving your arm where you have to urge yourself. Give yourself the time and make sure your mind is clear. Do not worry, your body knows about your purposes. And you'll move the object as soon as you are ready for it. In some way it's like surfing, you do your best and wait for the wave to catch it.
When the moment comes the psiwheel will start to spin and you'll know you're moving it.
Moving something with your mind (telekinesis) gives you a strange feeling that is hard to define. How is it moved? The catchy phrase "Just do it," explains a lot but also nothing at the same time.
If I analyze the feeling I can only find an analogue in a strong feeling of confidence. Remember the last time you were shooting baskets? The feeling when you knew you weren't going to miss even before you threw the ball? Or take a calculator and press "2" "+" "2". Do you have confidence about the result when you press "="? That might be a cheap analogy, but in some way it's a unique thing I can think of.
You can also say it's like moving your arms, but at the same time it doesn't feel completely like that, since there are no muscles between you and the psiwheel.
My suggestion is: you try it out yourself.
So when you get the feeling of the object, don't urge yourself and keep in mind your objective. Your inner self (subconscious) knows the aim and will try everything possible to move the psiwheel as your attention increases.
The time will come and that little thingy will start to spin.
Don't worry about the need to move the psiwheel. It's not exactly like moving your arm where you have to urge yourself. Give yourself the time and make sure your mind is clear. Do not worry, your body knows about your purposes. And you'll move the object as soon as you are ready for it. In some way it's like surfing, you do your best and wait for the wave to catch it.
When the moment comes the psiwheel will start to spin and you'll know you're moving it.
Moving something with your mind (telekinesis) gives you a strange feeling that is hard to define. How is it moved? The catchy phrase "Just do it," explains a lot but also nothing at the same time.
If I analyze the feeling I can only find an analogue in a strong feeling of confidence. Remember the last time you were shooting baskets? The feeling when you knew you weren't going to miss even before you threw the ball? Or take a calculator and press "2" "+" "2". Do you have confidence about the result when you press "="? That might be a cheap analogy, but in some way it's a unique thing I can think of.
You can also say it's like moving your arms, but at the same time it doesn't feel completely like that, since there are no muscles between you and the psiwheel.
My suggestion is: you try it out yourself.
So when you get the feeling of the object, don't urge yourself and keep in mind your objective. Your inner self (subconscious) knows the aim and will try everything possible to move the psiwheel as your attention increases.
The time will come and that little thingy will start to spin.
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