FryingMan's Fabulous Foray into Dream Yoga

Did intermediate #1 / visual / step one for the first time last night, 15-20 minutes or more. I see lots of random patterns, kind of like "TV static", but no "colors" that I can put a name to. Everything's different levels of dark or less dark. It seems there are mostly just two levels, with the occasional lighter grey blob making an appearance. I may be jumping ahead but this seems simple enough since it's just observation.

Once in a while I got bright greyish patches that floated around. Once actually resolved into I think a grayscale rendition of my window with the window sill which is packed with things poking up above the level of the window. That image persisted very clearly for quite some while without me having to spend effort to maintain it. I could "look away" from it and back and it was still there, quite stable.

I did basic #1/version 1/level 1 "listening to a noisy world" sort of while commuting today, listening to footsteps, the background sounds of the escalators, voices, things that I always "heard" but always ignored.

And I thought up this subject line before seeing MacSathurne's :P

More observing the patterns behind the eyelids last night at bedtime. Mostly the same: staticy-random patterns of dark and less-dark. Maybe once or twice some flashes of brighter areas with perhaps a tint of blue, something just a bit different from the main static.

OK getting back into this (been doing "immunity to shock" all this month steadily, still am) and looking through all the exercises and lessons to always have something to do during quiet moments and on walks.

I've always been able to "turn off" binocular vision, that's not hard, but I've never tried to hold it for long.

Did lesson 2 diffuse vision level 2 with a coin in front of me on a blue mousepad, and to my utter astonishment, I found that after a while, without any noticed change in physical focusing muscles, the left image or the right image or BOTH of the coin would entirely vanish! The coin was just "gone!" Each vision (usually one at a time) would just fade back in and out "on their own." I found I could sort of make either one vanish or reappear but not quite at will.

Useful for LD summoning/banishing dream control perhaps?

Just now I was doing diffuse/unfocused vision while standing and looking from the side at an angle at a mirrored cabinet door downwards so that I was looking at a reflection of the floor in the mirror and the real floor at the same time. I got the distinct impression that with the unfocused vision I could not tell which side, left or right, was the "real" side: the reflection or the physical side. I felt like I could easily walk into either side like both were "reality."

Also while doing diffuse/unfocused vision looking at a spoon on a table as I moved my attention to the periphery that the left and/or the right eye versions of the spoon would appear and disappear, fully or partially.

Walking now I naturally fall into combined diffuse vision and hearing exercises, combined. I also notice touch/sensation. Probably jumping ahead too fast. While walking yesterday I noticed a physical sensation I'd never noticed before: the small twists of my jacket slightly pulling on my back with the walking motion of my hips moving my jacket.

Can't hold more than about 3-4 sounds simultaneously, more than that and I sort of bounce around from group to group of 3-4 sounds.

More diffuse vision, hearing, and touch sensation, a lot of it simultaneous today. I was standing still in an area full of people at an event for several hours today, almost all of it with diffuse vision "turned on." I noticed so many more things than I normally do with normal (focused, binocular) vision where attention moves only from point to point, whereas it seemed that with diffuse vision (unfocused, no binocular) I could "see" all around me from left to right more or less simultaneously.

Several things struck me:

1) the use of diffuse vision: I was training my mind to "see" things around me using my mind to move its attention from spot to spot rather than by making physical changes to where my eyes were directed.

2) this could be very useful in entering dreams during WILD or DEILD or dream start DILDs where images suddenly occur. With diffuse vision, you can give your attention to your surroundings and notice things without "focusing" on them: be aware, but not "intensely aware" of them. Since dream images tend to vanish if I "look" at them (at least for me I find this), this could help in entering dreams.

In fact I had a late morning dozing LD today where a dream image made it all the way into a dream, I wished something to happen then it happened, and I woke up from excitement of my "wish" coming true. I was having lots and lots of HI / dreamlets forming and I was trying simply to "let them be" rather than focus on them.

3) I found that standing with diffuse vision (and paying attention to auditory and body sensations at the same time) for extended times seemed to put me in a sort of light trance state. I thought this would be a good time for auto-suggestion so I told myself I was a great lucid dreamer and that I am aware of all the dreams that I have.

edit: I recall that when HI start forming, I invariably activate my physical eyes to "look" at images off to the side, which tends to wake me up and disturb the forming dream. With diffuse vision this should help prevent that dream-busting reaction.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FryingMan

2) this could be very useful in entering dreams during WILD or DEILD or dream start DILDs where images suddenly occur. With diffuse vision, you can give your attention to your surroundings and notice things without "focusing" on them: be aware, but not "intensely aware" of them. Since dream images tend to vanish if I "look" at them (at least for me I find this), this could help in entering dreams.

In fact I had a late morning dozing LD today where a dream image made it all the way into a dream, I wished something to happen then it happened, and I woke up from excitement of my "wish" coming true. I was having lots and lots of HI / dreamlets forming and I was trying simply to "let them be" rather than focus on them.

3) I found that standing with diffuse vision (and paying attention to auditory and body sensations at the same time) for extended times seemed to put me in a sort of light trance state. I thought this would be a good time for auto-suggestion so I told myself I was a great lucid dreamer and that I am aware of all the dreams that I have.

edit: I recall that when HI start forming, I invariably activate my physical eyes to "look" at images off to the side, which tends to wake me up and disturb the forming dream. With diffuse vision this should help prevent that dream-busting reaction.

---

Great work so far. Observation 2 and 3 are spot on! It is a very hard thig to grasp, but both of those lines of thought are important. #2 is the main reason I want students to learn this. Dreamlets and H.I. hate to be looked at. An image forms and in normal settings your focus on it waking your mind up and the image goes away. By maintaining the feelings learned in diffuse vision you observe the images, with out looking AT the images, thus staying on track to WILD.
#3 can be applied with closed eyes also to induce a trance. Trance states are powerful tools in meditation and WILD. Good observations.

Hi Sivason, checking to see if you're still here? :).

My interest is piqued again in building a "(lucid) dreaming supercomputer brain." It's been 10+ years since the original class begin. Do you still recommend the course as originally proposed, or has you opinion changed over time in what is more/most important, or thought of something new? Thanks!