# Lucid Dreaming > DV Academy > Current Courses > Dream Yoga >  >  Beefer's Crazy Yoga Toad Workbook

## Beefer

Hi there, 
I am Beefer and I am a 16 year high school boy. To tell you the truth I used to see everything  related to mystics  as a myth ,but then I became interested in lucid dreaming and since then I have become more open minded to ideas coming from that area. I am practicing DILD and lucid dreaming in general and I think that practicing Dream Yoga will be beneficial to me. I am very curious to know what is dream yoga exactly and how does it improve awareness. I am also willing to do any home work you will give me in order to increase my awareness and lucidity.

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## Beefer

Home Work assignment number 1- First try:
OK so after reading the first task I chose to try out the first version and listen to the world while meditating with my eyes closed (just for you to know I have almost no experience in meditation). I sat down at my balcony and tried to listen to the world. After a few moments I heard many different noises and wasn't always able to tell which is what so I entered my room instead and meditated there. In my room there was much less noise. Only the sound of a single bird. Then I heard the TV from my basement (my room is at the highest floor), suddenly a car passed and the sound of the single bird became the sound of 3 different birds. One of the birds was a pigeon, the other sang a wonderful song which pleased my ears and the last was something like "squeak!!!!!!!!" even though it was very quiet... one time i even heard a raven. I am not sure how long i was sitting there, even though I think that not much. I am not even sure I did it right and found it quite confusing because I tried to focus more than one sound at the same time even though there was on most cases one sound at a time (the TV is an exception  :tongue2: ).

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## Sivason

Hi, I am glad you are interested in learning new things. You did the first  step of the lesson perfectly. You became awaare of noises that your brain had been erasing only a few  minutes before. Your ears had been picking up the noises before, but your brain had put them in the 90ish% of impulses it erases and discards. So, good job. For the next part you will have to leave a window part open or  anything like that so that you have more sounds to hear. If it is still o silent, then put a clock or something in the room to give you at least one sound, another could be letting the faucet drip.

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## Beefer

This time I decided to sit at my balcony instead of sitting inside my room since last time I opened my window and still heard quite a few sounds. So I sat down in the middle of the balcony, closed my eyes , breathed slower and concentrated. I heard the far away cars from the main streets in my neighborhood driving and producing the non stoping sound of traffic. Then a car from my street drove away while I was listening to sounds it made. A dog started to bark at another dog. The first dog started to bark long barks while the other barked short and quiet barks compared to the first dog. Then I heard two dogs which I already recognized from the past barking at the dog with the short bark, he was barking at them too and I could have sworn that I heard a shoe slips across the street floor (I have listened to my steps and to other people's steps when I was at school today so I knew...). I realized the guy who slipped his shoe across the floor took the dog for a walk and I also understood his trail from the sounds of the dogs made. In addition I heard voices similar to pigeon ,but much more quiet (baby pigeons!?  ::D:  ) and also a guy walking and whistling. Then I heard a guy shutting down his car and closing the door. I have heard also the sound of a plane flying above me. Now as you may have noticed this time I was able to determine the location of most sounds much more easily and I am not sure if this is even possible ,but after meditating for a while I also heard a blank voice which is sometimes described as the sound of quietness.

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## Beefer

Hey Sivason,

When is the next class coming? Because I think I was able to preform the first assignment quite well. In the meantime I think I will try out another version or maybe improve myself at the first one which I kind of liked.

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## Sivason

The next  two lessons will be reviewing a book and basic concepts. Those will be here very soon.  Im going to teach the skills gradually. Try each version I listed and then create a similar meditation yourself, be creative and just make sure it brings you more awareness.

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## Beefer

Hey Sivanson,

Well in the last days I tried out the 2nd version of meditation you mentioned ("Feeling the World") and actually I find it really like the first version. I tried it out in class in a boring lesson and also at home in my bed. Now I understood that the common thing between version 2 and 1 is to maintain awareness of as much as feelings, sounds or objects as possible. So yesterday I had a lucid dream, a very vivid and controllable one. So in a certain point I decided to try and focus on as many objects as I can in the dream. For a short period of time I was able to notice so many specific details such as wooden chips on a tree trunk. Even though I woke up a little after that because of a friend in the dream which pulled my legs while I was flying (just kidding I can not really blame him I guess I just lost stabilization and woke up). Anyways I am interested to know if you have ever tried focusing as many objects as you can in a lucid dream? or if you can do it and keep yourself stabilized.

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## Sivason

There is a common theme between all of the versions. They are all used to teach the yogi to have almost super-human control over levels of awareness. Keep the idea from this lesson and keep coming back to it over the years. It is like weight lifting and the meditation is you doing reps. You can quickly develop all sorts of awareness.

Hey, congrats on a vivid LD. I do not really try to focus on as many things as I can in a LD. With the skill developed from this type of training, I am able to create a fully articulated dream body, using version 2, and then stay highly aware of my dream body, while  applying intense focus on one dream object or scene. So I maintain focus on just three things I guess, my body, one highly developed dream object. I love getting up close to something and really taking in the fine detail, like the wood chip, and the repeating mantra "This is a dream."
However, if you apply this kind of intense focus, and have not learned to keep focus on multiple objects, you can forget about yur body and that it is a dream. So, the skill is actually used to keep you stabelized, by having object one be the body, object two the words "this is a dream", and then having the freedom to completely examine and focus on object three, say a sexual partner. That is how you can get around the problem with sex ruining lucidity. Important? I don;t know, you are male, so of course being able to have sex and stay lucid is important.

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## Beefer

Wait I am a little confused now. Should I keep trying on focusing as much as objects as I can in the same time like I did until now or have two objects that I focus on the entire time and a third object which keeps changing while I am scanning for new objects like you said right now?

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## Sivason

> Wait I am a little confused now. Should I keep trying on focusing as much as objects as I can in the same time like I did until now or have two objects that I focus on the entire time and a third object which keeps changing while I am scanning for new objects like you said right now?



In waking life use the meditation where you focus on as many as you can. You need to build the brain skill to focus on about 5 objects in order to maintain focus on the three things I mentioned while in the LD. It takes a huge amount of training to keep your body, what you are examining, and the thought of it being a dream. The meditation practice is much much easier whileawake. So you are exercising the use of this skill. While awake push this as far as you can, even 6 objects,,, just so you will be capable of doing three while in an LD.

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## Beefer

Hey Sivanson, 

So in the last few days I think that I came to realize something that you may have already said. I ignore so many things without noticing .I understood that while meditating on my chair which I usually not meditate on. I sat in my chair and looked toward my bed then I noticed my orange notebook ,but I was not focusing at it. I realized I can't see it well as I could see my bed . So then I told myself that I must have not payed attention to it. Then I stopped meditating and went see a new anime series. In the anime a particular scene grabbed my attention. It was a festival , a festival in china. One of the main characters was observing the festival. There was a huge dragon doll and it was splashing wine towards the people .Then a man fell from a roof and his blood splashed towards the people as well. The people kept cheering for the wine and didn't notice the man which fell before their eyes. The main character was shocked and fell back down. The he said a phrase which grabbed my attention. "The saw the man , but they chose to ignore it". Then I remembered my meditation and realized I was ignoring everything which was not my computer's screen at the moment. I felt like a little shock and observed all the things which I was ignoring. Actually I was very excited from the idea and started to think to myself of all the things I ignored. Now today after reading your update I decided to meditate on my chair and later outside. Before I meditated outside I looked down to the street and while focusing the edge of my balcony I also tried to focus a car and a tree. I noticed that I saw them in " a lower definition" ,but I was aware of that! later I tried to focus sounds and feelings like you taught me. Now I noticed that this time my consciousness wasn't so "flowing" it was "jumping". From an object to an object, from sound to sound, from a feeling to feeling. One faded and the other popped some times more than one feeling faded and another multiple popped. Then I noticed my inner monologue vanished. So then I tried to flip the situation and instead of focusing everything around me  I started to focus everything inside me. I slowly realized that I start to ignore the sounds I just heard and that my body became a little "tired" even though I wasn't tired at all. I was leaned against the wall of my balcony  almost in a natural way and then after a short while I decided to flip the situation once more. Now I tried to see if now I will be able to concentrate on more objects in the world around me ,but I didn't see any dramatic changes. So I decided to lay back on my back and try to meditate that way. At first I focused the world on the outside ,but then I decided again to focus whatever is inside my head. So I ignored everything on the out side and just had an inner dialog. Even though I had felt my body on the ground and did feel it relaxing a little. Then after a period of time that I do not know I opened my eyes after meditating on my back and I noticed that I can't really feel my hands. I get this feeling usually when I wake up after sleeping so I am not sure if I napped for like 30 minutes or was just laying there for 10 minutes just thinking , focusing everything inside and ignoring the outside.

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## Sivason

Very goood stuff. You are exploring and finding things out about your mind. It sounds like a very successful day.

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## Sivason

Hi everyone! It has been almost two weeks. I hope everyone got a chance to practice. The thread *Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson 1*, has been updated. I have shared a few ways these skills will be useful in LDs, and the thread is now open to Q & A.

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## Beefer

Well I haven't updated my workbook in a while so I figured I should do so. Well the reason that I didn't update it is because I didn't have any new 'discoveries' or anything like that and since you said that we shouldn't turn our workbook into a daily book report I have updated my workbook only when I had something to ask or something new to share. Even though because I see you put a lot of effort into the class , I should show that I do care too. 

So as I said I haven't had any discoveries while meditating in the last few days. Even though I do try to keep myself aware through the day. Even if I am at class or just near the computer back at home I try to be aware of the sounds around me , the feeling of my body ,the things I see around me and the things I ignore around me. Yesterday for an example I was playing with my younger siblings and their friend Blind Cow (kind of like tag ,but with your eyes closed) on our trampoline. Now what I tried to do here is to be aware of their location by the vibrations of the trampoline and the sound of their movement. It was actually a pretty fun game and I think they enjoyed it too  ::mrgreen::  .

I also had some conclusion I made and thinking about awareness and lucidity. So at first I was going up the stairs while I imagine myself arguing with my dad about something (these thoughts came to me naturally so I don't know if it is right to write that I imagined them). Then I had this moment of "it's a dream!" , but instead it was "Hey it's a thought!". I found it hard to control my conversation with my dad inside my head for after some period of time. I also saw some similarity between the way I saw dreaming before I got into lucid dreaming and the way I saw my thoughts at that moment. I actually didn't give so much importance to my thoughts just like I haven't given so much importance to my dreams before I got into lucid dreaming. This thinking led me to think that reality and dream realm are similar in some aspects. In both of them I usually don't give much of a thought to what I am doing or to what is happening around me even if some where inside me I know the answer. As an example when I wake up in the morning and go to school I don't think of why do I go to school. I go to school because that is what I do every day. In the dream realm I don't ask how is the wife of this basketball player is driving her bicycle above this snowy forest. She does because she has a special bicycle that can create a silk road on the top of the trees. In both cases I do know the answer ,but I choose to ignore it. I know that I go to school because my government decided that I have to and in order to get education so I will be able to do something interesting in my life  and that this lady can ride above this snowy forest because it is a dream. So in order to realize I am asleep (in reality and in the dream realm) I have to be aware of my actions , thoughts and surroundings so I will be able to stay awake.

I also thought that by being aware of my thoughts I can increase my concentration. I had three ideas how to do it:

 The first one was to imagine the things I hear, see and feel in reality and by that to grab all of my attention to the reality because in order for me to imagine the reality I have to examine it better. In order to examine it better I have to concentrate harder so by that I increase my concentration on reality.

 The other way was to try and control my thoughts just like you try to control a dream ( well dreams are basically my thoughts taking shape) and just imagine a dark screen without any details to concentrate on. By that I think it will be easier to concentrate on the reality because I will have almost nothing to concentrate on inside my head.

 The third idea was to try and organize everything around in categories just like you do when you create a data table. I thought about it when I spilled a box of cotton sticks on the ground. because I wanted to go to sleep I just pushed all of them into the box without organizing them. I couldn't close the box and the cotton sticks were all over the floor again. Now I thought that if I will organize my mind just like I should have organized the cotton sticks then I would be able to concentrate on different objects at the same time in a much more easier way. Also I thought that in order to maintain the different objects in the same time I should find links between them just like in a data table. For an example lets group together all the feelings in one group , all the sights in another group and all the sounds in a 3rd group. Now the link between the feeling and the sights would be my eyes because I can feel my eyes and see through them in the same time. The link between the feelings and sounds will be my ears because I can feel them and hear through them in the same time. The last link will be the link between the sights and sounds which can be two things: A source of a sound because I can see it and hear the sound it makes or the feelings group because it is already connected to the other two groups. If I will want to add a 4th object or a 5th object I will just have define it and link it to the other existing groups.    

I haven't tried any of these yet ,but I thought that I will just share these ideas with you , so they are just my theories in the meantime  :Cheeky:  .

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## Sivason

> I also thought that by being aware of my thoughts I can increase my concentration. I had three ideas how to do it:
> 
>  The first one was to imagine the things I hear, see and feel in reality and by that to grab all of my attention to the reality because in order for me to imagine the reality I have to examine it better. In order to examine it better I have to concentrate harder so by that I increase my concentration on reality.
> 
>  The other way was to try and control my thoughts just like you try to control a dream ( well dreams are basically my thoughts taking shape) and just imagine a dark screen without any details to concentrate on. By that I think it will be easier to concentrate on the reality because I will have almost nothing to concentrate on inside my head.
> 
>  The third idea was to try and organize everything around in categories just like you do when you create a data table. I thought about it when I spilled a box of cotton sticks on the ground. because I wanted to go to sleep I just pushed all of them into the box without organizing them. I couldn't close the box and the cotton sticks were all over the floor again. Now I thought that if I will organize my mind just like I should have organized the cotton sticks then I would be able to concentrate on different objects at the same time in a much more easier way. Also I thought that in order to maintain the different objects in the same time I should find links between them just like in a data table. For an example lets group together all the feelings in one group , all the sights in another group and all the sounds in a 3rd group. Now the link between the feeling and the sights would be my eyes because I can feel my eyes and see through them in the same time. The link between the feelings and sounds will be my ears because I can feel them and hear through them in the same time. The last link will be the link between the sights and sounds which can be two things: A source of a sound because I can see it and hear the sound it makes or the feelings group because it is already connected to the other two groups. If I will want to add a 4th object or a 5th object I will just have define it and link it to the other existing groups.    
> 
> I haven't tried any of these yet ,but I thought that I will just share these ideas with you , so they are just my theories in the meantime  .



I like all of your ideas. You clearly are becoming more aware and thinking about how you can become more even more so. Good job. New skills will be posted within a day or so.

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## Beefer

I haven't read lesson 2 yet even though I saw it was out , but before I will read it I feel like sharing my experience from my last meditation. Since all day long I tried to study for my big test without much luck thanks to my little siblings and their friends who shouted, cried and whined all day long (I love them very much ,but can't they have a little respect to their elder brother especially when he tries to study!?) I have decided to go to my balcony and meditate. I sat down at my usual place ,near the glass wall (you can also refer to it as a window ,but you can't really see anything through it so I refer to it as a wall  ::D:  ),closed my eyes and started to meditate.

 I mixed version 1 and 2 like I really like to do and in other words I tried to listen to the world around me and maintain the feeling of my body. I heard the sound of a sprinkler in my yard, a dog barking, far away cars, cars in my street and a loud voice which was of a party I think (or was it just my mind fooling me?  ::?: ). I tried to feel my body in the same way I could hear the sounds around me ,but I couldn't for some reason. I could sense my body ,but it wasn't in the same way! I tried to open my eyes since I read that some people meditate with open eyes ,but it still didn't help. 

Now I suddenly realized that I gave my sight too much attention. "So then ignore it" I thought to myself. I tried to ignore my sight and relieve my body (which I figured by now that was really tense!). Suddenly, the world I saw through my eyes became blurry , just like the things I usually notice that I ignore . Only maybe one spot on the ground of my balcony was clear. My back started to fall until I leaned against the glass wall. I felt my eyes closing ,but this time they closed naturally . I felt so relieved at that moment so in order not to ruin it I didn't even let myself swallow the spit inside my mouth (After a while I did...). Anyways at this point I started to feel my arms being pulled backwards by my back and suddenly I realized that my but and legs are moving forward!!! I always knew that there is a tiny slope in my balcony ,but I never actually really felt it had any effect on me some how. I opened my eyes to see if I was moving ,but according to my vision I was completely still. MY EYES WERE LYING TO ME!!!! I knew it! I could feel this slight movement of my lower body, sliding forward. I let my eyes close again and now in addition to these forces I felt my hand sliding across my leg. I knew this feeling already from falling asleep ,but this time I didn't 'help' my hand slide. I let it slide by itself. It took a while until it reached the ground ,but I was patient this time and at last it did (Actually everything I described took a while to happen I just write everything so fast so it seems it took a short period of time). Now my hand was on the ground , on it's back ,but my fingers were still curled. Then I remembered that hesse wrote something about 'feeling gravity' so I asked myself "can it be that I am feeling gravity?". In order to check that patience was required. I let my fingers loose and didn't interfere with their movement. I could feel the joints between the bones in my fingers slowly open and move toward the ground. Then I accepted the fact that all of these forces I felt were actually a result of gravity. I sketched in my mind a sketch of all the forces that influence my body just like I learned to do in physics class (Which I remember so well that I can upload it on paper). Actually at this moment I can say that I was aware of all of my body or at least of it's interactions (Well I can't say I was aware of my kidneys and my pancreas  :Shades wink:  ).

 The next thing to happen and maybe one of the most weirdest feelings I felt is that I lost feeling of my legs ,but in the same time I could feel them. I am not really sure how I can explain it properly ,but it was like my legs didn't weight anything, like they were asleep ,but I was aware of that and could feel them ,but not like I feel them right now. Maybe I just interrupted the flow of blood in my vessels when I put them on top of each other ,but I am not sure about it and can't really explain it well. After that I was able to stand up even though I couldn't feel my legs even though I could feel them in some sort of way ,but I had to use my hands in order to walk properly and it felt like I can fall really quickly if I won't pay my legs enough attention. After a while this feeling was gone and I sat here where I sit right now and started to write this long post. I am sorry this post is so long ,but I couldn't describe    what I felt in a shorter way without missing parts (Now that I think about it I might have missed a few like the breathing and some of my thoughts ,but I wrote the most of the things i felt and thought so it is fine  :tongue2: ). 

Now my conclusions from this experience are:
1.Don't rely to much on sight , it can blind you!
2.Tension will distract you so let yourself loose
3.Don't force things to happen ,you will just waste energy. let them happen by themselves.
4.There are many things that I haven't experienced yet and now I will quote Socrates: "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing".

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## Sivason

Damn good write up! I love it. Keep up meditations like that and your brain will be adapted to handle the more advanced stuff in no time flat! I am going to post your entire entry into the lesson and you get another 'Gold Star' which is now worth 30 hall points.

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## Beefer

Hey sivason,

Today I got to school and realized that my first lesson was cancelled and I was the only to not know about that. So I decided to practice "diffuse vision" because I had some spare 45 minutes  :tongue2: . So I found myself a quiet place to sit and I tried to use "diffuse vision" for the first time. I was sitting between to walls and there was this pillar in the middle. I tried to focus as hard as I could on the last parts of the walls I could see ,but I ended up exhausting my eyes. Then I walked around school (which was kind of empty) and tried the skill in some other places. I also tried to look outside the range of my glasses (yes I wear glasses  :Shades wink:  ) because I remembered you said that we should try to see things in a way we are not used to. I also ended up exhausting my eyes. After trying it for a while I realized that I don't have to focus the edges of my sight so hard I just have to notice them like I got used to (but this time two objects at once on different locations). By doing it that way I could focus the objects on the edges of my eye while my eye remains relaxed. Even though the edges are a little blurry ,but that is logical because there are less rays of light that come from them and reach my eye (and because it is out of the range of the glasses  ::roll::  ). 

I think that I quite figured how that skill can benefit for lucid dreaming. I noticed that in my dreams when an object is out the range of my sight it usually disappears or rebuilt (in other words changes ,but the concept stays the same). So the first thing you taught us was to maintain those part which are more likely to disappear. Then you told us that we need to learn to focus what is ahead of us along with the sides. Now the final level of being able to maintain the edges of sight as well as a plot of a movie is similar to maintaining a whole rapidly changing dream scene. By being able to that we will be able to achieve a very vivid lucid dream which we are able to maintain.

Now about the third skill "Be now and here" I would like to ask a question. I am not sure if I should do it on every day's life or when I meditate. On which state should I practice it?

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## Sivason

You do not want your eyes to get exausted or you are not relaxing the muscles. It sounds like you adjusted and haave a better way of looking at it now. The edges will always have poor resolution because of how the retina of the eye is set up. You can not read well with the edge of vision evn with perfect vision. You can still see every thing, but it is not as sharp.

As far as the Be Here Now exercise, please try it both ways. It will be easier if you allow yourself to look around. You  can easily find a "here and now" thought, like "That cloud looks like a  duck." Closed eyed meditation may require you to go back to the skills in lesson 1. So either way, but try both.

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## Sivason

> I think that I quite figured how that skill can benefit for lucid dreaming. I noticed that in my dreams when an object is out the range of my sight it usually disappears or rebuilt (in other words changes ,but the concept stays the same). So the first thing you taught us was to maintain those part which are more likely to disappear. Then you told us that we need to learn to focus what is ahead of us along with the sides. Now the final level of being able to maintain the edges of sight as well as a plot of a movie is similar to maintaining a whole rapidly changing dream scene. By being able to that we will be able to achieve a very vivid lucid dream which we are able to maintain.



Good thoughts. That is one advantage to the skill. I can now do things like carefully examine the sky in an LD with out having the sceen around me break up. It is not the main reason I am having everyone learn this skill, but it is a good use for it. You will get a "Gold Star" worth 30 hall points, when I open the lesson thread in less than 2 weeks.

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## Beefer

Ok so lately I have been practicing a lot of defuse vision. So I went with my friends to The Avengers in 3D an I figured I should try to use diffuse vision. While watching the movie I noticed my friend eating nachos and another friend of mine moving every 30 minutes in his chair. On the other side (the right side) I noticed the wall and another friend of mine trying to put his head on my shoulder and touch my hand (diffuse vision was very useful here  :wink2:  ). It was kind of hard at start to focus on the movie ,but after a while I got used to it. Even though I found it harder to read the subtitles and notice the details in the movie. I came out from the movie with a feeling that I excel at noticing what is on my side ,but lack the ability to focus on what ever happening before my eyes. So then I tried to observe a pen , but it was too big for me so I used a key instead. At the first time I pretty much failed  :Cheeky:  . At the second I was already able to notice all the slopes, the scratches , the holes, the dirt and sockets on the key. 

Today, I tried to use my finger instead of a key and combine the diffuse vision with "Listening and Feeling the world" . Actually that was quite a success  ::D:  . I was able to feel gravity (along with my body of course ) and maintain the sounds around me while focusing my finger and notice the edges of my vision. It was easy to link the sight of my finger to the feeling of gravity pulling it down so I used that method in order to maintain those two at the same time. In order to maintain the sounds I used the other skill you taught us "Be Here Now". I found that one very helpful and soon enough I used it to maintain all of the three senses.

After a while I decided to try out "The Thought Recall" skill instead . I have already tried it once before. Most of the thoughts I recalled related to things which are going to happen and things which already happened. This time in addition to these too there were the things who were happening right now. Those thought were or 'scary thoughts about demons and blood or thoughts who are explaining me my own thoughts and how are they influenced by what is happening around me. 

I am writing this really fast because I really want to go to sleep soon so I didn't give out much details about what I was exactly thinking ,but up until now I am quite happy with what I already achieved  ::D:  .

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## Sivason

> Even though I found it harder to read the subtitles and notice the details in the movie. 
> 
> 
> 
> Today, I tried to use my finger instead of a key and combine the diffuse vision with "Listening and Feeling the world" . Actually that was quite a success  . I was able to feel gravity (along with my body of course ) and maintain the sounds around me while focusing my finger and notice the edges of my vision. It was easy to link the sight of my finger to the feeling of gravity pulling it down so I used that method in order to maintain those two at the same time. In order to maintain the sounds I used the other skill you taught us "Be Here Now". I found that one very helpful and soon enough I used it to maintain all of the three senses.
> 
> .



Difusse Vision does not work for reading. If you want to read anything you need to use the center portion of one of your eyes. The center few inches of the eyes feild of vision is the reading peortion. You can stay in difusse vision, but must still aim an eye right at at. Basically you can not really read with it. It is not how I would watch most movies that had subtitles.

The second part is great. It is important to be ablee to combine the lessons, and diffuse vision is really cool and more advanced for meditations. I will post this section when I open the thread soon. *Gold Star, 30 Hall Points, when posted. *

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## Beefer

Hey Sivason,

Lately I am seeing some progress at diffuse vision and at obtaining LDs with awareness so I wanted to share it with you. 

I found it is much easier to focus on nothing when you let your eyes close for as a result of relaxation. Now I get what you were saying about the "android face" since when I used diffuse vision before one of my he was like "What is that scary face you are making  ::shock::  ? ".  Now I also added diffuse vision as a daily basis exercise that I do not only when I am meditating just like the skills from lesson 1 (Now I just have to add the "Now and Here" skill  :tongue2:  ). I think I am doing now right because I am also able to see vision distortions pretty fast thanks to my little 'discovery' which is mentioned above.

I have to say it quite a weird state when you think about it. It is a state where you lack awareness since you don't focus on anything ,but you are also aware of that and see the whole picture as you see it through your eyes. I got to that conclusion a something like a week ago when I was first able to do the exercise properly as I see it now. Then I realized that there is another state of mind similar to that which we achieve this balance between awareness and lack of awareness. This state is a lucid dream. In a lucid dream we are not aware of what is happening outside our mind and sometimes we even lack some logic ,but we are also aware that we are not aware of what is happening around us so we realize it is a dream. Tell me if I am wrong ,but I have a feeling that you want to teach this state of mind to us  ,because it is very similar to the state of mind which one experiences when he is in a lucid dream. 
I think that thing which stops us from being aware of this state of mind is a some kind of a defense system (like Froid mentioned in his Psychoanalysis) In order not to create anxiety for the organism. When it comes to diffuse vision it was harder to notice the sides because in that state of mind a primitive person would might be shocked from the fact he can't see well so this defense system tries to turn off his awareness so he will not suffer anxiety (which increases his chances to move on and survive). When it comes to lucid dreaming to anxiety would that nothing around you is real and that you are actually unable to feel your real body. Think how shocked you could have been if you would suddenly realize that nothing that you see, feel, touch ,smell, taste or hear is real. That is why beginners and even non-beginners are told to try and calm themselves down so they will not suffer that anxiety and wake themselves up or experience a nightmare.

Lately all the lucid dreams I had occurred based on awareness only. Like I suddenly realized it was a dream without doing any RCs. I think it is quite an advancement and I also see lesson two ,which I think was meant to increase our awareness of our own minds (That is why diffuse vision is not exactly related ,since it is a state of mind), as one of the major reasons I was able to make that advancement. 

Thank you for letting me get an access to that knowledge Sivason and have a good night  ::D: .

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## Beefer

Hey there Sivason! 

I haven't posted in a while ,but I was practicing diffuse vision a lot lately since I am trying to preform WILD (and also some Here and Now and Wandering Mind recall). So first I discovered that things look doubly not only when they are close to me. If I sit in the same place for a certain amount of time and focus on nothing and 'just see' ,even if I look at the wall or any other object that is some meters away from me it becomes double imaged! I try to practice diffuse vision when I am walking or just sitting in the car and look how the scene changes without focusing on it.

So now I have a little problem with WILD. I can't fall asleep... I am too much aware of everything so I stay awake. Not to mention that I am the type who has to be in control of his mind all day long so it is just really hard for me to let go. Thanks to Sageous I was able to determine that problem and he one of his suggestion was to try and focus on nothing. When I read it I was like "hmmm that sounds familiar..." so now I am practicing diffuse vision a lot in order to be able to go to sleep (In addition to 61 points meditation that I learned through the Internet). Now I found it a little bit hard to use the diffuse vision while laying in bed since I am not really using my vision so I get confused while trying to not focus on my body and the sounds around me. I thought that maybe I should try some how to practice 'diffuse hearing' and 'diffuse sensation' ,but I am not sure how exactly. Do you have any other idea how can I adjust diffuse vision better for my needs or any other idea how can I go to sleep while staying aware (I am emphasizing the 'go to sleep' part :shade wink: ).

By the way I also wanted to ask you when the next lesson comes out  ::D:  ?

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## Beefer

Well yesterday and today I tried both of the new skills after reading latest lesson before going to sleep.

So first I tried the first skill which is the visual one. I laid in my bed and examined my eyelids . Just like you said I could see some blue dots although the color was quite weak. After I WBTB I examined it once more and this time I think I saw  some yellow dots and later on which were even weaker than the blue dots. After a little while the yellow dots vanished and blue lines which were much more clear replaced them. There were 3 of them and it looked like they formed a shape similar to that smiley  -_-. I also had some troubles closing my eyes since they opened after a while ,but I guess I will just try and relax them or something . I actually already examined my eyelids before as a child. I remember covering my eyelids with my hands and then uncovering it and seeing the result. I also remember I used to see some colors like red and blue and maybe yellow I think ,but I am not sure about the last one since it was long ago (in my terms).

The second skill , the tactical one I tried today on my way back home. So after realizing the barber shop is closed I figured I should try the new skill so I held on to some objects in the way until I found the one I was most comfortable with. I grabbed a green hot square like metal pipe. After I decided to go with that object I grabbed it with some force and released. The few moments after grabbing it was quite easy ,but as time passed the memory faded. At start I felt my physical hand like it is still feeling that pipe ,but later on I decided it not effective enough so I tried to imagine a new hand that will hold the pipe while I am walking. Now it was like I felt the pipe with my shoulder in the same way I did with my hand ,but later on it was like there is something on my shoulder and from that point I couldn't really maintain that feeling anymore. I also found out it is quite hard to focus on the heat of the pipe and of the way it felt in the same time.

So now I am going to sleep and before that I will examine my eye lids once again and see which color will be there tonight  :wink2:  so... good night!

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## Beefer

Finally I was able to use the mental state of diffuse vision for WILD and as you might guess I got my first WILD yesterday. It was an amazing feeling like I had almost 0 focus ,but in the same time I knew I was there. I didn't really notice many HI only before I entered the dream. I just decided to post and give you credit ^^.

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## Sivason

> Hey there Sivason! 
> 
> I haven't posted in a while ,but I was practicing diffuse vision a lot lately since I am trying to preform WILD (and also some Here and Now and Wandering Mind recall). So first I discovered that things look doubly not only when they are close to me. If I sit in the same place for a certain amount of time and focus on nothing and 'just see' ,even if I look at the wall or any other object that is some meters away from me it becomes double imaged! I try to practice diffuse vision when I am walking or just sitting in the car and look how the scene changes without focusing on it.
> 
> So now I have a little problem with WILD. I can't fall asleep... I am too much aware of everything so I stay awake. Not to mention that I am the type who has to be in control of his mind all day long so it is just really hard for me to let go. Thanks to Sageous I was able to determine that problem and he one of his suggestion was to try and focus on nothing. When I read it I was like "hmmm that sounds familiar..." so now I am practicing diffuse vision a lot in order to be able to go to sleep (In addition to 61 points meditation that I learned through the Internet). Now I found it a little bit hard to use the diffuse vision while laying in bed since I am not really using my vision so I get confused while trying to not focus on my body and the sounds around me. I thought that maybe I should try some how to practice 'diffuse hearing' and 'diffuse sensation' ,but I am not sure how exactly. Do you have any other idea how can I adjust diffuse vision better for my needs or any other idea how can I go to sleep while staying aware (I am emphasizing the 'go to sleep' part :shade wink: ).
> 
> By the way I also wanted to ask you when the next lesson comes out  ?



The trick is in the mental adjustment you need to make to stop trying to focus on everything. It is a relaxed, take it all in, frame of mind, that does not jump and track after every sensation. Now in the WILD attempt, you need to think about your attention or mind's eye the same way. Experience everthing, but do not allow your focus to engage. This allows you to stay aware, but unfocused. Direct focus will keep you from the sleep state, but a wandering mind will cause normal sleep. This diifuse attitude allows awareness with out focus. It is a skil that takes practice, but you will get it.

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## Sivason

> Well yesterday and today I tried both of the new skills after reading latest lesson before going to sleep.
> 
> So first I tried the first skill which is the visual one. I laid in my bed and examined my eyelids . Just like you said I could see some blue dots although the color was quite weak. After I WBTB I examined it once more and this time I think I saw  some yellow dots and later on which were even weaker than the blue dots. After a little while the yellow dots vanished and blue lines which were much more clear replaced them. There were 3 of them and it looked like they formed a shape similar to that smiley  -_-. I also had some troubles closing my eyes since they opened after a while ,but I guess I will just try and relax them or something . I actually already examined my eyelids before as a child. I remember covering my eyelids with my hands and then uncovering it and seeing the result. I also remember I used to see some colors like red and blue and maybe yellow I think ,but I am not sure about the last one since it was long ago (in my terms).
> 
> The second skill , the tactical one I tried today on my way back home. So after realizing the barber shop is closed I figured I should try the new skill so I held on to some objects in the way until I found the one I was most comfortable with. I grabbed a green hot square like metal pipe. After I decided to go with that object I grabbed it with some force and released. The few moments after grabbing it was quite easy ,but as time passed the memory faded. At start I felt my physical hand like it is still feeling that pipe ,but later on I decided it not effective enough so I tried to imagine a new hand that will hold the pipe while I am walking. Now it was like I felt the pipe with my shoulder in the same way I did with my hand ,but later on it was like there is something on my shoulder and from that point I couldn't really maintain that feeling anymore. I also found out it is quite hard to focus on the heat of the pipe and of the way it felt in the same time.
> 
> So now I am going to sleep and before that I will examine my eye lids once again and see which color will be there tonight  so... good night!





Good job! Keep working that exercise as it leads to some amazing things later. The advanced skills will be of no use to those who did not really practice these other skills. This one can take a month or so before you start getting really good, but we all have lots of time to work on it.

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## Sivason

> Finally I was able to use the mental state of diffuse vision for WILD and as you might guess I got my first WILD yesterday. It was an amazing feeling like I had almost 0 focus ,but in the same time I knew I was there. I didn't really notice many HI only before I entered the dream. I just decided to post and give you credit ^^.




*Freakin Awesome!!!*

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## Beefer

Well not much lately with the visualization... I get to see blue ,but not so much. It look like there is a lot of black ,but among it there are some blue shapes which are quite weak. Maybe I am doing something wrong or maybe it just takes a lot of practice.

Anyways the tactical exercise is much more easier for me. I am already able to recreate in my mind the feeling of my whole arm moving (more or less  :tongue2:  ). 

Oh and another thing! Is it just me or when you perform diffuse vision light sources looks like as if light rays are coming out of them o.o ?

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## Sivason

I do not think you are doing it wrong. This is one of the most powerful and useful skills I have to offer.  I listed it as intermediate, because  it takes a lot of time and practice. Spend a few years on it if you need to. That is a problem with developing mental yoga skills and an internet class. Most subject can be learned because you just memorize something. Developing entire new skills of the mind takes at least 3 weeks to make a breakthrough, then more time to develop any mastery. So, stick to it. I was thinking the course should take about a year. A couple more intermediate skills will be offered. Plenty of time will be offered for each, plus you should keep practicing them now and again through out your life. The advanced skills will require that you practice them in side of an LD, so that is what make them advanced, but you will have developed all the skills in the basic and intermediate threads. You will just be learning how the skills give you mastery over LDs.

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## Beefer

Ok so now I am able to fill my entire vision field with blue ,but it is quite hard to make the blue go away or to summon other colors instead....

Also some days ago (maybe even a week) I have sat down and tried to visualize blue instead of doing it before sleep and I encountered some odd experience. I was looking at the colors I created and then quite randomly I thought of them as a snake. So this so called blue 'snake' was looking at me and moving around a bit. The thing is that I actually thought of it as the real thing , quite similar to the way it happens in dreams. I even had to calm myself down and tell myself that the snake is my friend so I will not panic. I tried later to induce such a thing before I went to sleep and after I caught on to some yellow shapes I tried to transform them into a golden dragon I just remembered from the book that was beside my bed. I could see how the yellow shapes reacted to the dragon I pictured in my mind ,but my control over it wasn't that good and it wasn't vivid like the snake... I also tried that out  a third time when I tried to picture a red squirrel ,but that was a total failure and the red shapes haven't even resembled a snake. It is not that I clearly saw those things ,it was more like the shapes adopted significance of their own. It was quite a weird ,but cool experience  ::D: .

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## Beefer

Oh and another thing Sivason! I have sniffed around the other workbooks of the students in order to see if I can find something interesting and I saw that you wrote some nice post at fOrceez's Workbook about reality being an illusion. So after I read it I am interested to know how do you know that everything around you is actually a dream and what is a dream to you?

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## Sivason

You are doing great with the visualization skill! I think you have made it farther than any one else at the moment. Build this skill up over the rest of your life. It is one of the most important skills I have to tteach for LDing.

As far as knowing. I have had a very weird life. I would actually be taken as crazy or a bold face liar by many if I revieled everything that has happened. The most simple way to explain my 'knowing' is that after 25+ years of actively chasing thsi stuff and perhaps 20+ years of full Kundalini awakenig I have had it proven to me many hundreds of times. I have been able to do 'things' that are based on the dream nature of reality, that appear to be extremely powerful magic. So, if I wass only sure due to a feeling, I would call that faith, but when the truth of it has been shown to me hundreds of times, I feel I honestly know it.
As far as everything being a dream, do not get confused and think I doubt science. The dream we are in is unimaginably stable. The laws to govern the dream have been set and the dream holds everything in place by falling back  on set ways things happen. So, in this dream gravity is very real, and to fly, man dreamt up airplanes. You do not get full control of the dream, so you can not walk through walls and other things that clearly defy nature.
A creative force is providing the basis for the dream, but we are also dreamers. It is a shared dream in that sense. The way you use this for magical ends, is to realize that the future is not limited by anything. You can imagine a future in which you find a parking space easily. You exert the same kind of dream control as in an LD and can get astounding results. None of the magic I do could be proven to be supernatural. For instance, always having perfect weather when I travel could be a coincidence. So, the laws of science will stay in place, but as long as the dreamer (me) works within those laws, aamazing things can happen. Make what you will of it, no one can convince another of such things. I actually reached a point about 10 years ago where I no longer am limited by normal human preception, and can now actually see the dream material (can not explain).
I can tell you that I started this path at about the same age you are, and have been able to 'dream up' a wonderful almost perfect life, full of anything I have  ever wanted, including spiritual development and a good soul, on top of lots and lots of sex with pretty woman, and becoming so wealthy, the bank would let me buy a Lexus with a credit card if I wanted. Just saying, I have had proof.


Your post about the snake will be pasted into the lesson and you earn 50 hall points!

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## Beefer

WooT! I was finally able to fill my whole vision field with another color than just faint blue! So that day I started to read The Hobit by G.R.R Tolkin and I really like the way he described everything in the book. So then I decided that I will try to describe what I see in a similar way to the descriptions of the surroundings in the book (or in other words I combined "The right here and now" skill with visualizations). First I started to describe the red color I wanted to appear. "Then a red screen appeared before me red as a cherry , as blood , as a fresh strawberry from a field!..." That was what I thought to myself and finally I saw a complete red screen before me. Even though that was not a faint red like before. It was a red color as a cherry or as a tip of blood or even as a strawberry! "Then the the red screen started to vanish as if the dark black field from beforehand took over it just like darkness takes over the day when evening comes" I thought to my self and ... it happened! I was quite tired when I tried it and since it was quite late (you can also refer to it as early  :wink2:   ) I went to sleep. That was the first time the colors I saw had a strong color and no a faint color as always.

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## Sivason

Woot! Awesome.

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## Beefer

Ok so for some nights I haven't been able to get that red screen again so today I decided I am going to get it. So at first I tried to pull it of slowly ,but the red wasn't really reddish , more like blackish . So then the blue shapes and dots which always appears there suddenly took the form of a 3D rhino. Then I wondered how did that just happened since it was just an association. Then I thought that maybe in order to get the red screen I need to try and get an association of it. So I tried to ,by just thinking suddenly ".....red!" (More like imagining suddenly ,but not really as you just imagine something , more like seeing it). Well it worked for a moment since I saw a red  screen which after a second disappeared. Then I also tried to associate the red screen by imagining things related to red like you suggested and saw that it works in the same way.
Then I just decided to move or something and with my eyes closed saw my hand moving  ::shock::  . I was completely sure my eyes were closed , so I tried once again and I saw quite a dark version of my hand and when I opened my eyes it was placed almost exactly (at most cases) at the location of the fabricated hand I saw which was made of black & blue shapes. Then it got quite interesting. After moving my hand around and seeing the effect on the shapes and dots I used the tactical skill in order to try and create an imaginary hand which would touch my face and see how it would affect the shapes and dots. The results were very exciting since i was able to see dark , 5 long & round sticks on my face which looked like the imaginary hand which copied the real hand of mine. I think that because that because of the expectation of the fact that that my hand is there and the association that my hand is there since I can feel it (In this case expectation and association seem to me as the same thing) made me 'see' a fabricated hand which adjusted it's location to the original hand or the hand I created with the tactical skill.

Now it doesn't stop here  :wink2:  . So just when I woke up from this dream about me being in a pool at my school with that girl , I decided to go back into that dream with DEILD (I didn't really think of that as a DEILD at the time ,but now it seems like a DEILD). So I tried to imagine the girl , to see the girl. I saw the girl and then suddenly I had the association of her making out , so she was making out with this guy. Then I was like "Hey I want to make out with her!" so I tried to feel her warmth against me and her tongue , so then I saw her , and felt her making out with me. Hurray! Although then I saw her again with another guy... so the first thing that came to my mind that she might be a prostitute. Then the girl disappeared and I was like "Oh no the dragon kidnapped the princes!" so I would go on an adventure to rescue her. I visualized the dragon and I fought him even though in the middle of the fight with the evil dragon some how it turned to be a game of mario (maybe because of the princess thing...) . Anyways what I am trying to present is that I had quite a fine control of the dream whenever I tried to control something which was quite awesome! even though it was for a short while. It is much easier to feel something or see something in a dream compared to the visualizations that we do in reality.

Edit: Hmm after writing the second paragraph I see that it doesn't seem so exciting as it felt. Well it is just that it was exciting to see that the visualizations and the tactical skill worked so fine in the dream.

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## Sivason

Very nice, you are starting to learn little subtle ways your brain works. I like the whole first two paragraphs and will paste them in to the lesson and award 50 hall points. Great progress!

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## Beefer

Hey there Sivason, 

I haven't posted here in a while because I didn't really had anything exciting to tell you . Although today I had an awesome WILD attempt (I started to become quite good at WILD ^^ ) . So in the dream I was at my balcony and it was raining . So I tried to collect the blue dots (The raindrops ) into a ball of water at first. Now in the past I was already able to water bend ,but not properly  ::?:  . Even though today the rain drops gathered into one blue perfect water ball !! The thing is that I think that might be because of the visualization. It makes sense because I usually connect the blue random dots & shapes into blue screen , so here I just did that with water  :tongue2:  . I have seen that you updated some new skills now ,but I didn't really see what are they ,although I am looking forward to learn the new skills  :smiley: .

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## Sivason

Great. I am glad to see you using the skills in LDs. This visualization skill will greatly enhance your dream control.

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## Beefer

Hello once again Sivason ,

This time I came here in order to seek for an advice  ::huh2:: ! I started practicing the "create motion" skill. So I started with concentrating on the points you mentioned and I could pull it off at most of them _,but_ there is one particular point that I can't really focus well... This is the one point that the spine connects the skull. For some reason it is hard for me to shift most of my focus to that spot without shifting focus also to my jaw and skull. Is that supposed to be that way? If not then do you any idea how do I prevent it to be that way and gain more focus at that particular spot without focusing also on my jaw or skull.

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## Beefer

I kind of was able to get it. It was basically an area that I am usually not really focusing so it was harder at start. I guess I just had to get used to it and concentrate plus be a little more patient until I will pull it off. In addition I also used the mental state of diffuse vision in order to eliminate the undesired focus on the mouth  :tongue2:  .

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## Sivason

> I kind of was able to get it. It was basically an area that I am usually not really focusing so it was harder at start. I guess I just had to get used to it and concentrate plus be a little more patient until I will pull it off.* In addition I also used the mental state of diffuse vision in order to eliminate the undesired focus on the mouth*  .



Brilliant! You may be one of the few who  gets that. Another small issue that just needs worked through with practice is that you activate nerves with this kind of focus, and they may be connected to areas you are not trying to focus on, but it sounds like you are doing great, good job!

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## Beefer

> Brilliant! You may be one of the few who  gets that. Another small issue that just needs worked through with practice *is that you activate nerves with this kind of focus, and they may be connected to areas you are not trying to focus on*, but it sounds like you are doing great, good job!



That explains that undesired focus !

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## Beefer

Well I haven't really progressed much with the 'creating motion' technique since I still think I can't shift my focus good enough from point to point. 
Although I have done a lot of thinking about all sort of subjects related to the mind and I think I am starting to get more interested in it. One thing I have realized is that control is all about focus (Maybe not all of it ,but it is a decent part indeed in my opinion). I have came to notice that by shifting my focus from one thing to another I can control my dreams better. For example like you like to do Sivason  :Cheeky:  , by shifting your focus to feeling of the angel wings you have you can create them. Also in my dreams I like to focus one color for example and then see how many stuff of that color appear suddenly  ::D:  . 

The funny thing that I noticed is that it doesn't only apply to lucid dreaming ,but also to many other stuff like: Magic tricks , Marketing , Pickup and all kinds of field where one manipulates the mind of another and control it. Those things are all basically _a game of focus_. Whether you use quick hand moves to avoid the focus of the crowd while attracting it's focus with words like "Abra Kadabra!" , or attract a customer attention towards the pros of a product instead of the cons of the product , in the end you are just playing with people's focus & attention .

Maybe that was already_ obvious_ for most people . now you must be thinking something like 'yes it might have' or 'nope! I didn't think about it that way...' since I attracted your focus toward that sentence above . Anyways I just realized it and I think that might be some valuable information so I decided to share my thoughts which I was thinking for a while.

Also now I think I understand why people who do meditation want to quiet their mind or their inner monologue . That way they can shift their focus to whatever they want which means they can actually 'control' the world as they see it in a better way. I have also noticed that all of the skills you are teaching are _'focus related'_ so it gave me a feeling that I am on the right way here  :tongue2: .

That is why lately I am playing *a lot*  with my focus in many different ways and in many different situations. That is actually quite fun  ::lol:: . I am play focus along the day and also use the skills you teach on random occasions so even while going on the street I suddenly use diffuse vision to ignore the people around me and listen to the cars driving on the road and to the sound of my feet hitting the floor.  

I have also developed some kinds of an idea that since the world as I see it , like a dream , is actually a 3D movie inside my head so like I am not afraid or shy to do things in my dreams I shouldn't be afraid or shy to do things in reality since both realms are actually existing inside my head in some way or another. I mean , like it is kind of funny not to behave naturally at my home why shouldn't behave naturally in my head?

Those are just some thoughts I had lately and figured I should share them  ::D:  . So now I have got some H.w. for tomorrow so I better do them so I will be able to go to sleep soon >.>   .

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## Sivason

Great progress. In a path like this, much of the progress is about how you view life and relate to your mind and the world, and not so much about achieving the skills. These are intense hard to master skills, and you have forever to do it. For now, it sounds like you are growing as a person and  becoming more aware. I coudn't ask for more.  :smiley:

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## Beefer

Yesterday I stayed after physics class to ask the teacher a question about something related to math and the conversation just went in a way that reminded me some things you said Sivason. So first just for you to know my Physics teacher has PHD in physics and he described himself as a plasma physician that decided to become a teacher.

So we were talking about Mechanics and then he started to speak with me about our minds . He said something like that : " The world as I see it is not really as it is. I understand there is some function that converts the world as it is to my the world I see ,but as we learned with time this function has some distortions. All I have to do is be aware of them."  (I am not sure about the words ,but it was the concept as I understood it and I also translated it to english so that catch me with the words  :tongue2:  ). 

At that moment I was like ' isn't it like Sivason's theory which everything around us is actually a dream and that we have to be aware of our surroundings?' . Actually lately I see that mystics and non-mystics usually refer to the same things with different names. For example once I read on the internet an article by a mystic where he was talking about the soul and then I read an article by a non-mystic speaking of the mind & the thought. It was quite funny since they described it in the same exact way ,but referred to it by different ways.

Also today I thought about my conversation with my teacher while trying to perform the second step of the 'create motion' skill. I tried to focus the different points and then I suddenly thought 'If this whole world is actually inside my head shouldn't I try to focus on the point as it is inside my head rather then on the external point on my body which is not on inside my head?'. So I tried to use my brain in order to shift my focus and through it directing my focus towards the point I wanted. It worked quite well !  I guess the mouse cursor you were talking about is actually the mind itself  :smiley:  . Now I will try that once again tomorrow because now my mind is tired and I _really_ want to go to sleep . Anyways just thought I will share  that stuff with you ^.^ . I wonder how much can we manipulate that world inside our minds, is it possible to make pain go away or even controlling heat & cold. I guess I will try that out in the future.  Anyways my conclusion is that the manipulation of everything around us whether it is : focus , happiness , perspective starts in our own mind.

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## Sivason

Thanks for sharing your thoughs. I am on a mobile phone now, so I will write more later. You can infact seriously effect both pain and heat/cold. I can use these skills to go outside and make snow angels in my underware or go for a walk in below freezing weather with no shirt on. You can not detect any discomfort on my face. I can also endure tremendous pain with out showing any change in my facial expression. The level this training can reach is perhaps, Beyond your wildest dreams. You can get to where you can almost experience virtual reality while awake.

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## Beefer

Hey there Sivason, 

Today our math lesson was cancelled so I just went to sit some where and eat something. I was eating my ban and then suddenly I thought to myself " Hey let's try for once to create the feeling of motion ! " . Lately I have been practicing on shifting my awareness from point to point ,but I didn't really try to move around while focusing on the points. Although it was obvious for me, the moment I read it, that by moving at the same time while shifting your focus you will eventually make a connection between the two feelings and will not need to spin anymore to feel that you are spinning. Now the thing is that I am not sure whether I pulled it off or not. I felt that I moved like in a little circle ,but it didn't really look like the world around me was spinning. Even though one may say that I could have moved just a little bit so my vision was  not really effected. Anyways I will still keep on practicing that skill so one day I will be able to tell for sure that I am not really moving ,but just feeling that I am moving  :smiley:  .

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## Sivason

This skill does not have a visual component. Souns like you are doing it right. You do make a mental connection and soon do not need to actually move to create the feeling of moving. The visual field just stays the same, so doing it with closed eyes may help.

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## Beefer

Lately , since I practiced the motion skill I spent much less time on the other skills. So I started to practice visualizations a little more than usual. So something like 2 days ago I tried to create a red triangle. First I created a red screen. Than I tried to create the red triangle while speaking to myself in my inner monologue . Now although it was for something like one or two seconds I could see a red triangle with white edge which emphasized it. Later on it just applied into a red screen again ,but to tell you the truth I was pretty excited  ::D: ! 

Also I think I will adopt the idea of closing my eyes while practicing the motion skill. I will also try to create a feeling of a bigger spin so it will be easier to distinguish whether I am truly spinning or not ^^ .

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## Sivason

> Lately , since I practiced the motion skill I spent much less time on the other skills. So I started to practice visualizations a little more than usual. So something like 2 days ago I tried to create a red triangle. First I created a red screen. Than I tried to create the red triangle while speaking to myself in my inner monologue . Now although it was for something like one or two seconds I could see a red triangle with white edge which emphasized it. Later on it just applied into a red screen again ,but to tell you the truth I was pretty excited ! 
> 
> Also I think I will adopt the idea of closing my eyes while practicing the motion skill. I will also try to create a feeling of a bigger spin so it will be easier to distinguish whether I am truly spinning or not ^^ .



!!!YAY!!! Red triangle witnessed by student!!! awesome, keep it up, it can become amazing!

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## Beefer

Hey there Sivason,

I haven't posted in a while due to school pressure which is still pressuring hard enough  :tongue2:  (Math test tomorrow and I don't feel ready enough while I got also some other things to do ,but I will handle it  ::D:  ) .

Anyways I am practicing the energy simulation technique ^^. So I can already feel that as if something is moving across the 2 points I pick all over my body (I think that the 61 points meditation I used to do before going to sleep helped here ^^ ). I have tried to do the step with the water ,but i wasn't really doing good on that. I wasn't really able to aim the water properly so I found the exact state you mentioned only twice. Also I noticed that when I stimulate this feeling of energy moving through my body it seems as if it is a little hot. Warm would be a better way to describe it. I started noticing it when I thought of this movement as if it was the movement of my blood inside my vessels. It seemed pretty logical to me since the blood delivers energy and oxygen to the cells so you may refer to the the blood system as a system that transfers energy to the entire body. I am not sure the biological fact completely match ,but that is how I see it ^^ .

Also lately I noticed that my mind uses many connotations that I am not really aware of. For example every time I want to go to sleep the first thing which pops up in my mind is "go to the toilet!". I also see that in certain states I tend to wander while in others I am quite aware. Usually when I walk around I am very unaware of my surroundings. I discovered it actually from my DJ. I wanted to use it as a dream sign for MILD and when I started to question reality while walking I noticed that my awareness really dwell in that state. I think that maybe there is a relation between the activities I do to the amount of awareness I have. I can remember that when I used to swim on a swimming team I used to alway get lost in thought and not notice the number of pools I swam. I also think that by shifting my focus to something else I might be able to gain more awareness when I do a certain activity.

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## Sivason

It sounds like your doing everything right. I am glad at least one student is progressing in the intermediate skills. They take lots of work. Visualizing energy flow can actually produce body heat. Maybe it does stimulate blood flow or something.

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## Beefer

Really? Wow this cool !! How can you be sure about that though? 

Oh and another thing! May I ask in advance what will be the next skills ?

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## Sivason

Aside from me personally being able to change my body tempature and stand naked in a snow storm with out ill effects, and that people can feel the tempature change, studies have been conducted. Here is what I grabbed off Wikipedia just now,,,

*** In the first experiment, in Upper Dharamsala (India), Benson et al. (1982) found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C. In a 2002 experiment, conducted in Normandy (France), two monks from the Buddhist tradition wore sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism (Cromie, 2002)***

As far as the next lesson, I will need to think about it for awhile. I am not sure what skill will be best as most students are not done with the basic stuff. A good one would be to eliminate thoughts. It allows you to gain full control of the lucid, as the uncontrolled factors arise from uncontrolled thought. You can use this skill to prevent DCs and random events from arising. It is pretty advanced, so I am not sure it will be next.

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## Beefer

You got me interested! Can you give me even a brief explanation on how to do that? I bet you make your mind busy doing something like focusing only on your breath or just trying to keep track of the time that passes ,so you mind would be to busy to think and by that you might be able to eliminate thought (or at least your inner monologue ). Am I close  ::D:   or is done in another pattern?

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## Sivason

> You got me interested! Can you give me even a brief explanation on how to do that? I bet you make your mind busy doing something like focusing only on your breath or just trying to keep track of the time that passes ,so you mind would be to busy to think and by that you might be able to eliminate thought (or at least your inner monologue ). Am I close   or is done in another pattern?



It is different than that. That is more like the basic skills. This is very subtle and involves learning to push back gently against the very first risings of a thought. It is something new, like diffuse vision was. I guess I could throw it in next as an advanced lesson. For now you can just try to see how early in the growth of a thought can you detect it. Try to witness the birth of the thoughts.

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## Beefer

Hey Sivason, 

There haven't been to much progress lately in dream yoga skills & LDs in general. Maybe except one neat experience involving visualization where some how red circle appeared on the floor (When my eyes were open  ::shock:: ) and I was able to move it around by will, while meditating. Anyways I was not really sure why my LD rate has dropped drastically from a LD every to 3 days to a LD every 1-2 weeks. 
I thought it was maybe due pressure at school or lack of sleep ,which could really effect my LD rate ,but I think the main thing is the doubts I have . I tend to doubt everything around ,always. Not only to doubt that something exist ,but also that something does not exist. Now it seems that after I learned to doubt reality I progressed into doubting also the illusion itself. Just like when you realize that reality is an illusion by doubting reality the opposite would make you live inside an illusion. When doing both at the same time , one becomes confused or at least uncertain what is true or false. Now I think that since dreams and reality are an illusion what I need to do is to use faith in order to form the illusion of myself succeeding in seeing through the illusion and by that make it into reality. In other words to be more confident ...
I am sorry for the long post which actually says so little ,but I really felt like writing it that way since that is how it is organized in my head. Now I guess that I am going to try and fulfill what I mentioned above and strengthen the basic skills. Also about trying to stop thoughts. I think you need to become an observer of your thoughts and not be the thinker itself. That is all for now, I am going to sleep now so good night  :smiley:  .

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## Sivason

You are doing fine. It is only a few who get far enough to question the very basic nature of reality. I have no quick fix for seeing past the illusion, but you are correct, that it takes a belief in your ability to eventually do it. The waking world can be made to comply to a control  similar to that used in LDs. You must have a picture of what you want, and be willing to believe that is what is going to happen. Simply picture yourself understanding more every month, and someday making a massive breakthrough. In the mean time, learn these skills, as they help you grasp how much of your reality is subject to preception.

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## Beefer

Hey there Sivason, 

Haven't posted here for a long time  ::D: . There is not much of advancement. I am reviewing the basic skills on a daily basis. I like to play with my sense of touch on hearing when ever I feel like it and I feel that my awareness got quite better. I also really liked the energy simulation skill and I do it when ever I am cold usually. I am still trying to figure out how to stop thought ,which is naturally hard for me since I am a 24/7 thinker. At the moment I think that in order to that one must become an observer of his own thoughts ,but on the other hand he must not interact with them at all. I find it a little hard to do and I am not sure wether I am on the right track or not. Will you please give some guide lines about that particular skill ?

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## Sivason

Sure, I have a little time off for the holidays, so I will make a new lesson about it. It is very advanced and even with practice you will be needing to suppress a thought evry 30 seconds to a minute. The first trick is to sit in meditation and try to find out the earliest you can detect a thought forming. Get to where you can feel a new thought starting, before your brain turns it into internal monolog. But, I will try to post a whole lesson about it tomorrow or the next day.

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