PhowaBoy's Tantric Pursuit

[PhowaBoy]

I've decided to start a dream journal in order to aid me in my study of Buddhism. I have been studying Buddhist philosophy for many years now and have begun to study Phowa. Phowa is an ancient Buddhist practice of transferring ones consciousness at the death time to a favorable rebirth. From my understanding of Buddhism, it is thought that the death time is a lot like falling asleep, and the bardo (intermediate state between death and rebirth) is much like dreaming. At the death time, if one is well practiced in Phowa and able to remain peaceful and controlled through the dissolving of the internal winds, you will be able to control your rebirth into another human form or even the pureland! The lineage teachings of transference of consciousness are part of tantric study (or secret mantra). As only a qualified spiritual guide should teach the methods, I would recommend some good Buddhist books (particularly by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche - found at Tharpa.com or Tharpa.ca if you're in Canada). I'd like to focus on the similarities / differences between the dream world and waking world in order to explore new perspectives of reality. The two worlds seem to be of the same nature accept they are perceived by different states of mind. I'll enter dreamsigns in blue Lucid dreams in green Symbolic events (as far as I can tell) in orange

[PhowaBoy]

My wife and I are travelling in Argentina. We are staying at a large ranch with about 10 other people from around the world whom we don’t know (yet). We are staying in a large stone mansion. The walls are white rock with gold flecks, the ceilings and windows are high. Very fancy, and very old. We can’t sleep anymore (about 7am) and get up to have breakfast. After breakfast we wander around the mansion looking for secret passageways. At this point I remember that secret passageways often lead to gates to other worlds. This thought comes to me just as remembered knowledge, however, it was from previous dreams that I have found gates to other worlds. In the dream, I did not recognize it as knowledge coming from other dreams I’ve had. My feet hurt, and as I look at them my view zooms in like a microscope with a ‘zzzzzzt’ sound. I can see tiny white cigar shaped parasites crawling on my feet . I pick them off, but my feet still hurt. I look at my foot again, zooming in and picking off the bugs. I decide to go to my room and spray my feet with some antiseptic. I look at my feet after spraying (zzzzzzt...) and all the little bugs are writhing around and dieing off. The head rancher comes by and asks if I’m OK. His feet hurt too, so he borrows some of my spray. He says, “must have picked them up in the barn”. I then have a small fragmented dream, like a dream memory, in which I see myself saddling up a horse. The perspective is from near the ground with focus on my feet (I’m only wearing sandals ). This memory is to the dream me as a daydream would be to the waking me. My wife and I head over to the pub near a lake or ocean. My wife gets a drink consisting of 2 shots (one bubbling water, the other a whisky coloured liquid). She tries to drink them both at the same time, spilling on the person next to her. I told the bartender to surprise me, so he brings out 2 shots of red liquid. Someone bumps the table and my drinks spill on the ground. I go in to the pub to order another drink. After trying to figure out where to stand in line at a round bar, I eventually get to the bartender who asks me how I liked my drinks. I said, “I don’t know, they spilled on the ground”. He felt sorry for me and poured me another 2 shots for free. I also ordered a pint!

[PhowaBoy]

Dreamt I had just finished a year of college somewhere, and myself and 3 friends (only friends in my dream, I’m not sure who they were) stopped by my parents place and dive off the front deck and stretch out to slowly glide over the yard. I come back to the window and my mom warns me there’s a storm coming. We go out to the back to see it and it’s a funnel cloud and it’s moving towards us. I think, “well this is great, I finally get to see what the inside of a tornado It only stayed as a funnel cloud, however, when I looked up the centre of the funnel, it was a blue/grey shimmering color. After it passed, I noticed that the yard was flooded, and there were a bunch of tropical birds floating in the water, many of them were dead. A mother and her 3 or 4 year old walked by, and the little guy picked up one of the young dead birds and said, “look mom, I got one”. She said, “that’s nice dear, let it go”. He dropped it and they moved on out of my consciousness. I never really got a good look at the mother.

[PhowaBoy]

Just a short recall this time. I was on a warm, flour white sand beach in the tropics. Me and a buddy (not sure who he was) had a water balloon and a big launcher. There were 2 girls walking waaaaaayyyyy down the beach. We lined up the launcher, very carefully aimed it at the two girls with just the right inclination, and let her fly. As the balloon went soaring over towards the two girls, we had the time to pick up the launcher and run over to the trees to hide and watch. Sure enough, the balloon slowly descends and WHAM!, nails both the girls who look back to see who shot them. I think to myself, ‘yeesh, that might have hurt...’. Godzilla was looking on and grinning.

[PhowaBoy]

I had an intersting dream revelation a few nights ago.... There were no walls, just blackness. There were many platforms, all set at different levels held up by scaffold. Each level seemed to have garbage pilled on it with guards in red and brown uniforms patrolling them. In the distance there was a tree like sculpture made from scaffolding, metal and garbage. I had to get to it for some reason. I realized that I was Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia, and C3PO were there as well (I don’t know where R2 was). For the most part, I would take the perspective of one of the 3 characters and watch the events unfold, however, now and then I would become one of the 3 characters and watch events unfold from their perspective. We were captured and placed in a confinement chamber by the guards. This chamber was on a barge on a world of water. We were rescued by strange cat like creatures, the height and form of a human, accept with long fur, whiskers, and large bulbous cat eyes. They had a 30 foot boat with a cabin which we got onto, and sped away. The cat creatures were trying to get us to safety when large metal pirate ships appeared and started firing cannons at us. The cat guys were getting pretty worried and let us off at a floating raft with a large steel tether that went up into the sky. We new that this went up to the dark scaffold world, so we all held on to the tether, and were pulled up. Once on the scaffold world, we knocked out some guards and took their weapons (at least Leia did; C3PO is useless as usual, and Luke prefers the light sabre), everyone starts dive-rolling and shooting guards to try and get to the tree, because Darth Vader is in there (of course). I switch to the perspective of Luke who gets to a nearby scaffold and jumps into the air and begins flying over. As I’m flying over to fight Vader, I think to myself “see..... I’m great at flying, I don’t know what my problem was before”. At this point in my dream, I remember that in previous dreams I have troubles flying since my mind is so logical. This is also the point I realize I’m dreaming and become lucid. The tree changes from the dark metallic scaffolding, to a weeping birch, with bright white bark, and a blue sky behind it. I try flying up into it, but I sink to the ground. At this point, a thought is plaguing me (as it always does ) that this is just a dream, and I can’t ‘really’ fly. I notice that as my waking thoughts mix with my dream thoughts, the world slowly changes from a dream world to a waking world. I try to retreat back into the dream world, but my thoughts are drifting to the waking. I feel my body lying on my back with my hands on my stomach, only when I awake, I realize my hands are by my side (I fully imagined and believed my hands were on my stomach). I can’t get back into the air or back deeper into the dream world, no matter what I try. What strikes me is that even after flying through the air and telling myself how easy it is, that doubt should plague me and drag me down. As my waking beliefs resurfaced, I noticed how the dream world was transformed into the waking world. It makes me wonder if I’ve misjudged the magnitude in which the power of faith in beliefs about ones world (dream or waking) creates ones reality, and the world itself.

[PhowaBoy]

Been a while since I last posted, but here goes. I was at my childhood home on the hill, and the sky was big, blue and cloudless. My mom pointed out some birds flying in the distance over the house. There were three of them, with grey feathers that had white tips along the wings, and strange black feathers near their heads. They looked very much like eagles with arrow like black feathers near the head that made them look sharp. They were also very big, in fact the size of a small airplane (the one in front was anyway; and the two behind it were smaller, possibly young ones). We all watched as they glided effortlessly through the air and were in awe at what a rare sighting this was. As I began to wake from the dream, my conscious waking thoughts began to mix with my dream thoughts (dream mind seemed to be more pure). The birds were circling around us and I began to think “why are they circling.... they’re hunting!”. I ran down to my room and got a high powered riffle out of my closet. As I raced out the back garage door, the large bird had landed and was preparing to eat my mom, who was running and screaming towards me in a terrified state. As the bird darted it’s head to grab my mom, I fired shot after shot into it’s head... then woke up. I was interested in how what started out as a peaceful dream, was infiltrated by suspicion, and violence as I became awake. After I got up, I went to a Buddhist ceremony called Kangso (extensive offering to the spiritual guide and dharma protector). It was there that I saw an image of the bird in my dream (in the Sadahna book which I had never seen before!). It was a Garuda, or more correctly, three Garuda’s. Garuda’s are thought to symbolize wrathful deities who purify delusions. It’s an interesting coincidence that I should dream of wrathful purification symbols and then watch as my waking mind mixes with my dream mind and sullies the peaceful dream experience.

[PhowaBoy]

Fallen off the dream recall wagon recently. I'll be glad when I've finished renovating!

[PhowaBoy]

Went on holiday to a resort on the moon. My wife and I left the main lobby and walked over to a room in which we were to be suited for a moon walk. There was some concern about going into the room with the suits, as there were many poisonous gasses in the air. I thought, “how do get into a space suit, if you can’t go in the room without one on?”. We ended up just holding our breath and walking into the room (which looked more like a laboratory) and picking out suits. Once they were on we walked out onto the moon and jumped around. The sky was so black, full of stars. It was great!

[PhowaBoy]

$&(#$@ dryspell!!!!.... I've got to up my efforts

[PhowaBoy]

I dreamt I was visiting with an African couple that had become Canadian citizens. I’m not sure who they were, but apparently I worked with them. They were planning on going back to Zimbabwe, to work there, but as Canadians. I asked them if they were sure they wanted to go, as Canada is a pretty awesome country to live in. They looked somewhat unsure, but they decided that they had to go anyway. That’s it... Been having trouble remembering dreams lately. It’s an improvement!

[PhowaBoy]

Started a reality check regime November 18, 2005. Set my watch to go off every 30min, then do a thorough reality check to somehow prove that I’m not dreaming based on signs that often occur in my dreams. We’ll see what shakes loose. Last nights dreams: 1. Was in my hometown and had sold my car before I was able to buy a new one. I realized I couldn’t get home (I live out of the main city). Ran over to my old high school, just jogging, but each stride covered about 100m so I was clipping right along. A rain storm was coming and I was going to get soaked, so I found a handhole near a curvy road with trucks screeching around it. (A handhole is a splice location for fibre optics – part of my work). I opened the handhole and proceeded to punch in my code to check my email (in real life this of course is impossible). It began to rain a bit so I decided to run over to the car dealership in the middle of town. As I was clipping along, I got a call on my cell phone from one of my dad’s old clients that he had a Dodge Shadow for $3400 (Canadian). I trusted him because he was my dad’s old friend, so I told him I’d take it. I ran over there to pick it up; don’t know why I didn’t just run home at the speed I was going. 2. I was hiking in the forest somewhere near a road in the foothills, and came across a cut block. I decided to camp there (I was by myself) and threw down my pack to look around. As I was walking away I remembered to get my bear defence stuff, so I went back to my pack. As I got to my pack I noticed a bear walking towards me. Terrified I opened the pack and took out my pen launcher and fumbled for a bear-banger charge. The bear kept walking towards me so I jerked the pack backwards with me digging frantically for the charge. Finally I found it and screwed it into the launcher, and then began yelling at the bear to “take off” (A little Canadiana for you fellow hosers). The bear must have been in a circus at one time, because it began to do a handstand. I fired the charge, but it miss-fired and just sent the casing into the air and back to the ground again. However, the bear was a bit of a wimp and was scared away by this. I then looked at the site I had selected for my tent and there was a giant dead moose lying there. It must have brought the bear in.

[PhowaBoy]

Can only remember one dream from last night. There was a large black spider under the bead. Took off down town to see how much I could get for it on the black market. Came back and tried to catch it, but as it jumped at me I woke up. I hate that!

[PhowaBoy]

1st Dream: Pretty steamy, involving girls I knew from university days. One of the dream characters was a girl from college that I had a close relationship with (as friends). She seemed to be trying to get me to explore my attachment to sex and my commitments to my wife. My overpowering need to satiate my lust vs. my understanding of the cyclic trap of samsaric delights. I think I'm getting better at understanding lust. down the street. I wasn’t happy with the speed I was going so I tried to fly up into the atmosphere as fast as I could. I managed to do it but the details were kinda sketchy. {Just before falling asleep my wife wished that Dakini’s would visit my dreams. In Buddhist cosmology, Dakini’s are enlightened beings that often enter your dreams to teach you spiritual lessons, often with a humorous and mischievous type approach. Perhaps her suggestion before falling asleep influenced how the dream went (ie. Perhaps I did have Dakini’s in my dream!)}. 2nd Dream: I had 2 brothers and a father, who remarried a woman who had 2 daughters. So there were 5 kids and the parents, and we're all living in a big house, on the beach, near the ocean. We were trying to convince our parents to let us go play in the ocean, and I knew that we had to team up on them if we were going to be allowed (we were all under 10). We went and asked them, but they said the water was too rough and we would have to play in the house. My brothers and I went down to the basement where there was flood water. Apparently there was an alligator down there, so we were looking for him. Feeling a bit scared, I wondered how the alligator got down there, and then my mind flashed to a TV news story where there was a scene with a large concrete tower with a pipe coming out half way up the tower. A helicopter was heading straight for it, and a commentators voice said, “And so begins the free life of old Mac”. The helicopter crashes into the concrete tower in slow motion, and from underneath the helicopter, a large alligator goes flying forward and flies right into the pipe (into the sewer system I suppose). Pretty weird dream!

[PhowaBoy]

Only a fragment: For some reason, I had set some left over slate tiles in the main hallway of the building I live in (apartment style condominium). I had set the tiles directly on top of the ceramic tiles that were already there. Of course, the tiles cracked and broke and now it was my responsibility to fix them. I remember thinking, “why on earth did I do this??!!!”

[PhowaBoy]

Had a strange dream in which my wife and I worked in a strange industrial town. The entire town was covered in stacks, and towers like that of a refinery. We were standing on a step looking out over this giant refinery town, and trying to work out what to do about the place. We were trying to figure out a way to help nature recover, and bring understanding of the value of nature to the executives of the town. We tried to be as kind and considerate to them as we could, and they appreciated it. I think things were going well.. then I woke up. Nice dream really.

[PhowaBoy]

Dream 1: Staying in the basement of some old house with a whole bunch of beds in the basement. The rest is pretty explicit. Dream 2: I am backpacking in Barbados (I think?). I’m getting on a bus with a bunch of the locals to get to the airport. Once at the airport, you have to swim over to check-in. I get through check-in, then I start the dream again, only this time I’m traveling with my family, and we are taking the train to the airport. The bus terminal is next to the train platform, and as the train pulls away, I watch all the local people move into line to get on the bus (I didn’t notice myself in line). I recall thinking that the train is more expensive than the bus, but way faster. Once at the airport, I again have to swim to check-in. There is a waterfall / slide part that they added because they thought it would be fun. I notice how ruff the bottom of the pool / slide is as I’m about to go over and think “this is pretty cheap”. Once at check-in, the guy there congratulates me for making it this far, and a buddy of his shows up and offers him, and myself a giant joint. My sister shows up because she hasn’t had one in a while, and these guys fumble around trying to light the joint. They keep dropping it, and finally manage to light the wrong end. My mom shows up and my sister insists she’s just hanging out (as she has a couple kids now, and my mom wants to make sure that she knows this sort of activity is very inappropriate). The two custom guys bumble us through check in, and the dream fades away.

[PhowaBoy]

I have a house on a ridge near a river. The ridge is at the bottom of a large bank. I decide to make a single ski run down the bank since this would be awesome. There is a couple of old German lift engines in the garage (lucky me) in which I set up as a rope tow. Then I mark out a cleared path down the bank with survey tape, strap on my snowboard, and my sisters and I ski until super time. When I was younger, my sisters and I would tie a few ropes to the ski-doo, and one person would drive, while the others skied behind (like water skiing, accept on old X-country ski’s in the snow). We’ll all be together for the first time in years again this Christmas… must be thinking about it.

[PhowaBoy]

Dream 1: In a floor hockey tournament, only the tournament is in the basement of an old friend's house, and the sticks are only about 1 foot long. The puck is just a small orange plastic disk. Bill and I kick everyone’s ass. Dream 2: Walking through a city much like my home town. I’m walking over to get a ride home with my family at my dad’s old office building. By the time I get there, it’s dark, and there are large black pillow-y clouds filling the sky. I look up and notice how strange they are moving. The all rotate clockwise a few degrees, then stop, then rotate back and stop. Something weird is happening, so I head upstairs to get the family so we can get out of there. When I come back down, I see about 6 or 7 Tornado’s in a line heading perpendicular to us. One of them heads towards us, and we decide to try and take shelter. Mom tries to open the office building door, but it’s locked and there is no time to open it. We run around the building and there is this colorful spiral staircase which spirals down into some water (like a very strange well). We all squeeze into the well so that we’re not hit by debris from the tornado. As the tornado passes by, it’s emitting a white light that broadcasts these humanoid holographs of what I assume to be aliens marching in a parade or something. I figure it’s the aliens’ way of introducing themselves. I get up and head out into the street and use a strange instrument to call to the aliens. One of the tornado’s focuses on me, and the clouds clear and I can see their ship. Then wake up.

[PhowaBoy]

I had a pretty strange and profound dream this morning. I was at my parents home around the yard in the early morning before anyone had woken up. I was experimenting with what allowed me to fly. I found it difficult to fly anywhere if I tried to will myself to fly, however, if I just blindly believed and convinced myself that I could do it, I flew around much easier. This is where it gets a bit confusing. I was wondering if I really could fly and decided to get someone in the house to watch and verify if they can see me flying. So I sort of ‘wake up’ in my dream and I’m lying on the picnic table by the garden with a thin sheet of white linen covering me. I can’t move so I try to lift the linen with my will, but as I’m waking I notice that it isn’t really lifting like my mind thinks it is. Eventually, I lift it enough for the wind to pick it up and blow it off me. I get up and try to lift into the air with my will but it’s not working. Here’s where it gets profound. I think of the differences between the dream world and the waking world and decide that the way things occur in both worlds follow the same mechanism of mind, and I come to believe that the thing that is preventing me from flying in the waking world is believing that I can’t, and that the laws of physics prohibit it. However, just because no one has ever observed it, doesn’t make something impossible. With this thought, the waking world takes on a feeling of the illusory dream world and I fly around. I call my sister onto the patio to verify that I’m flying. When she comes out, of course, I’m not able to fly, however, I manage to levitate a bit. She says, “ya, ya, you’re flying”, and goes back in to breakfast. When she goes in I fly up a little higher and look in to the dinning room through the patio doors, and my monk teacher is sitting there having breakfast. I yell out “hey look, I’m flying” and do a couple of loops. He says back to me, “well… I guess you’re a Bodhisattva now”. I didn’t really feel like a Bodhisattva, since I don’t consider myself compassionate enough to be one, and it kind of focused my attention on the fact that flying doesn’t really fill life with meaning anyway. Good start though. Illusory body, here I come

[DocORock]

Your dream of the instrument to call to the aliens is interesting indeed.

[DocORock]

Your dream of the instrument to call to the aliens is interesting indeed.

[PhowaBoy]

February 18, 2006 Partially woke up in the middle of the night, and somehow realized that I was dreaming or had just entered the dream state. I was starting to get exited, but then I remembered how this wakes me up in previous lucid dreams, so I stayed calm and decided to just go along with the dream for a while and not try to hard to make things happen. I ended up at the place I used to work at as I had to find Lyle and talk to him since the brakes he installed on my car are squeaking a bit. It was dusk and I was walking around the shop looking for Lyle when a sound freaked me out a bit. The shot of adrenalin really added to the dream experience and made it more realistic. The vividness of my Lucid dream seems to lack until more elements of experience are added to fill it out. Now that the dreamscape had been established, I decided to try flying out over the farm fields. I lifted off the road quite easily and flew slowly out over the field a little way, but couldn’t get far. It seems my mind can’t generate the necessary flying visuals. Still tied to convention I guess. I try to change the scene. Everything goes black and I know my body is still sleeping and I’m close to waking up. Calmly I look at my hands and rub them together, and as I concentrate on them, they slowly materialize into focus and I decide that I have woken up at my childhood home (that rubbing hands thing works so well ). Went outside and tried flying. I couldn’t get very far away from the deck; however, I could fly out over the entire yard slowly. There seems to be a problem of generating the appropriate visuals to fly any further or faster. I was thinking about making a saucer or something to fly on, but I had trouble manifesting one to use. I bet I’d probably do a lot better flying from an unknown origin. Decide to start over… everything goes black and I wake up in childhood home, get up, and go outside. Decided to just explore the area and walked over to where the holiday trailer is parked. The holiday trailer was parked on a big flatbed trailer. I got onto the flatbed to check out the trailer, and it fell off the flatbed into a big drainage ditch my dad had dug beside the driveway. I managed to pull it back onto the flatbed, and was surprised at how light it was. Remembered the lucid task of the month, and went back inside to find a mirror. Looked in a mirror and saw myself and became a bit exited (kiss of death… or in this case… kiss of waking), and as I was reaching to the mirror I sensed my wife shifting next to me and woke up…. Dang! I started drifting back to sleep, and managed to experience the transition between waking and sleeping with the help of my wife. Just as I was drifting into sleep, my wife asked me if I’m asleep. It felt as if my physical awareness had just melted away, and my body had melted into emptiness. My body then melted back into existence and I became awake. She told me that she asked if I were sleeping, just as my breathing changed. Breathing pattern seems to be an interesting indicator of falling asleep. I’ve also experimented with heart rate monitors, and found that at a heart rate of 49 beats per minute, I was just slipping into sleep. I was thinking it might be handy to be able to consciously experience the transition from waking to sleeping using heart rate monitor or someone watching your breathing. Could end up helping a lot with achieving WILD’s.

[PhowaBoy]

Monday, May 8, 2006 A bit of a weird dream. Was back at my childhood home, and I was going to take a nap with the intention of working on my dream control (I wasn't lucid in this dream). I slipped into a dream (a dream within a dream) in which I looked like Gandalph in white robes. I was practicing flying around someone's back yard but wasn't having much luck (as usual). In fact, I was a bit worried that people could see up my robes. Anyway, I decided to concentrate really hard and force my will to make me fly faster. So I closed my dream eyes and thought, “OK... push... really hard... way up into the atmosphere...”. I felt my body rush quickly upwards and felt as though I was in the atmosphere. Here's where it gets a bit weird. When I opened my dream eyes to see what should have been a rounded earth, I opened my waking eyes and saw that I had stretched my room and bed straight upwards about 100 feet! I freaked out a bit, and as I jumped off my bed, the room shrunk back down to normal proportions just as I was hitting the floor. I looked in the mirror and saw what looked like my dad at a young age. The eyes were hazel and the pupils where really constricted which freaked me out even more. I ran out of my bedroom and into the TV room where my mom and dad woke up and asked, “I suppose you just got home?”. It was about 2am, and I knew that I had gone to bed around 11pm. I couldn't decide whether or not to tell them about my dream. For some reason, I felt like my dream control efforts where aging me faster than normal?

[PhowaBoy]

August 17, 2006 Dreamt I was sleeping over at a younger, heavier Reese Witherspoon's house. Her parents liked me, and thought I was a nice boy so they had me sleep on a Thermarest in Reese's bedroom. I caught Reese looking down at me from the bed so we started making out. Later in the dream she turned into the older, Reese (oddly, I don't find Reese all that attractive). I've got to start keeping better track of my dreams!

[PhowaBoy]

Wierd underwater dream Was back at childhood home on the hill. Most of the lawn was covered in a few meters of water. The water had three layers: the top layer a turquoise blue, mid layer - medium blue, and the bottom layer was dark violet blue. As I dove and swam through the water I could see sea urchins and sea cucumbers growing in rows. I thought that this must be a sushi farm... Then, near the road, whatever was holding the water in broke and everything (including myself) went flushing away.