Dream Yoga ∙ 3 Part Series

Lama Lena: Okay, good morning, y’all. Welcome to this teaching on Dream Yoga. Dream Yoga is really important because you’re going to spend about a third of your life asleep. And that’s an incredible amount of time, useful for practice.

(Lineage prayer)

Sleep Supplements & Levels of Sleep

To start this, I want to talk a little bit about sleep, and how you sleep. Because how you approach Dream Yoga is going to depend on whether you are a deep sleeper or a light sleeper. Whether you fall asleep easily, or have to take a pill sometimes, or a tea sometimes to help you fall asleep.

Certain kinds of sleeping pills will interfere with dream yoga. So, certain kinds will not. For example if you take a sleepy time tea to enable yourself to fall asleep because you do not fall asleep easily, check the ingredients. If it has Valerian in it, it is not a really good idea. If you take Valerian to help you sleep, it will often diminish your clarity so that you will not have the more profound kinds of dreams. You may have only very random confused brief dreams. It interferes with dreaming, so does Valium unfortunately. Other things, either I don’t know about. I’m not sure about CBD. Don’t get good dream results if I take a CBD.

One thing I have noticed with old age is that I sleep much lighter; I used to be a champion sleeper. I could go to sleep anywhere I had the opportunity, no problem. Naps on a train. While sitting in a chair. I used to sleep in a gom-tree for years, no problem, but as I age, my sleep has become lighter. So occasionally I have bouts where I’m not sleeping deeply enough to get a good rest. And I have experimented with different things to help me. For me CBD is an interference. But I have no text to talk about that.

Valerian can be an interference because of its effect on the channels. It’s actually a constrictor. It is used among shamans when somebody has an oopsie, a trance channeler or a steed, has an oopsie, and has accidentally traps channeled some kind of snake oil salesman or idiot off plane and can’t seem to get rid of them. You dose them with Valerian high dose. It’s effective for that, but I don’t find it useful for dream yoga.

There are some Tibetan sleeping medicines that Norbu Rinpoche talks about. Can I find the reference? Ba ba dum ba.

The names of them should be in here. I’m pretty suspicious of Western sleeping pills. Okay, if anyone has read Norbu Rinpoche’s book, it should be in there on Dream Yoga. And I’m not finding it, but if you can get a hold of a Tibetan doctor. They have some pills which will drop the lung, but not constrict the channels two kinds. Something 35, with 35 ingredients, and if it has Valerian in, it has something to counter it. And there’s another precious something that does this. You can use those better. To get them, order them as Tibetan sleeping pills for rising lung with difficulty to sleep, from your local Tibetan doctor. There’s a whole Tibetan Medical College out in the East Coast of the United States, and there may be one in Europe, where these are purchasable online. You can look for that and look it up.

Chamomile seems to have no bad effect. The Tibetan recommendation is to eat a carby noodle soup right before bed. This will generally deepen your sleep and soften or lower your lung. Also, a colder room with more blankets will generally lead to a deeper sleep. So if your problem is you don’t sleep deeply enough, start looking at some of these things.

The other thing is to have a great deal of physical exercise early in the day; go dig a ditch, work in the garden, go for a run early in the day. And then perform mental exercise such as a crossword puzzle or Suduko also before 3pm. These will also help to deepen your sleep if difficulty sleeping is your problem.

There are ways to work with light sleep and Dream Yoga. But they’re not that useful until you’re somewhat experienced with dream yoga. For the beginning experiences, it is better to do something to deepen your sleep. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, because the minute you start practicing dream yoga, you get excited by it. This sure helps you go to sleep. Doesn’t it? Have a sense of, “Now I’m going to go do something exciting”, so it raises your lung. So try some of these methods. If you have personal questions coming through, you can put them in chat and I will start answering questions in a minute.

Sleeping Too Deeply

Now for those of you who sleep too deeply and you want to balance this, you need to sleep lightly enough that you can maintain awareness or come to awareness enough to remember your dreams. If you don’t remember your dreams (which is really common for non-Dream Yoga practitioners), I will talk about some methods for doing that. But to begin with, you need to lighten your sleep to the point that you can wake up from the dream-time remembering your dreams or skim it.

For instance, if you wake up on towards morning (which is usually prime dream-time , as naps can be, the after-lunch nap, which is traditional during summer retreats), you can skim dream-time, where you’re like skimming a stone on a smooth pond; you’re dipping in, retaining consciousness, going in dream-time for a while, coming back out, dipping in. You’re sort of bouncing in and out of it. This is easy to do from – usually for most people who have a decent day/night rhythm and no flatline cortisol (which means that they’ve lost their rhythm) which can be caused by excess jetlag. I had it for a while. But for most people with a decent day/night rhythm, that’s going to occur around the time of first birdsong, which is long before false dawn and lasts through false dawn and often until sunrise.

If your rhythm is messed up, it could come later or earlier. There are methods of resetting your rhythm, there are herbal medicines (consult with your herbologists) that will help to do this. It’s considered a kidney deficiency or an adrenal gland deficiency. It’s adrenal deficiency rather than adrenal failure. And there are herbs that help with it if that is your problem. But by simply not using electric light anymore, you can totally rebalance it.

This is one of the things I do every year in my cave. Although, I do now have electricity there. I don’t use it. I liked it, a lamp with a flame, a little kerosene lamp or I use a candle once the sun is down. This is extremely helpful for balancing your day and night rhythms so that you can find your timings more easily.

If your sleep is too deep, having a light source behind the headboard of your bed. So what you do is, you mount a little shelf above the headboard of your bed, so that you don’t actually – as you’re lying in bed – see the flame. But you put – because, if you’re a restless sleeper or God knows there’s an earthquake, you don’t want a live candle up there unless you live in a cave, in which case it’s fine. They don’t burn down. So yes, I use a live candle or a live butter lamp when I’m in my cave. But I’m in a wooden house right now. So I use an electric votive.

There are certain things you can’t do with an electric votive, certain practices, but this is not one of them. This is a practice you can use an electric votive, especially a battery operated one. I don’t like the effect of wall current on an electric votive. The plugin candles because of the 60 cycle a second alternate alternation which we know interferes with certain practices. I haven’t tried one for dream yoga simply because of that. I use a battery powered, little votive from the dollar store. I think they’re two for a buck, cheapo. And so you get a little shelf and you put a little Buddha image or image or stupa image or you can put the little text, stupa and Buddha image the three, but you make a little shrine very small with a little shelf. You can often find these little wall mount shelves in secondhand shops, or even get them from Home Depot, or wherever you get home depot, floor craft wherever you get your little stuff like this online. And you put an electric votive candle there so it’s not shining in your eyes, but it’s increasing the ambient light in the room. And the ambient light is coming from beyond the top of your head which has symbolic meaning in Tibetan. So that will lighten your sleep.

A warmer room with less blankets – burrito-ing up in a bunch of blankets will often deepen your sleep if you’re not having hot flashes due to it, which is why I said a cooler room. Moving air, windows open, will often lighten your sleep. Because you’re going to hear, you know, the wind in the trees and stuff. It’s all going to be subliminal. But it can lighten your sleep.

Certain positions can be used. For standard male channel pattern, lying on your right side. In some lineages, women lie on their left side and close off the left nostril. However often the lower nostril when you sleep on your side closes itself off and you breathe through the upper one. Usually, one nostril is stuffier than the other for most people. This one is stuffier and it’s usually the bottom one when you’re sleeping. So, that position is helpful for many people.

But if you’re still too deep: more pillows. Get a wedge. Sleep on your back. It’s a lighter sleeping position than on your side. Even on your stomach, for stomach sleepers, it’s usually a deeper sleeping position. So these are ways of adjusting your level of sleep. Optimal for a Dream Yoga is to fall asleep with some ease.

I tend to use melatonin these days. I have not found any negative effects on Dream Yoga from it. When my sleep is capped, which happens periodically, sitting up in a gom-tree is optimal. But that’s a whole nother bit of learning experience and it’s optimal for clarity, dreams of clarity. Let’s see if we’ve got questions yet on levels of sleep.

Nyondo: Not for sleep levels. A number of people commented on the Tibetan Medicine. There’s two, one is B-mala and the other is Agar 35.

LL: Yes, B-mala and the other is Agar 35. Yes, and one Agar 35 is more warming, B mala more cooling. Mm hmm. So if you got hot flashes use B-mala. Thank you folks, because I’m old and I don’t always remember nouns for giving that information.

So Agar 35 if you tend to run cold and B mala if you tend to run hot, and these are accessible. So, if you’re not able to go to sleep with ease and especially if you are dependent on Western medications for help, I highly recommend trying these according to Norbu Rinpoche, they have no interference with Dream Yoga. And I’ll trust him highly, highly on this because he’s an expert at it.

Dream Yoga Texts

We talk about texts for a moment before I go on to types of dreams.

Depending on how you like your text, how meaty, Norbu Rinpoche’s Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light, Dream Yoga Light. This is basically pith instructions without all – with many of, but not all – of the other stuff that might be useful to some people but isn’t really useful to most people. That is enough of a text for you to master dream yoga from a text and with a few instructions on the side, because it’s never all in the book. For, I’d say 70% of the people trying. Where it is lacking. He wrote this, I believe, long ago back when he was still in Italy. So, his cultural issue, his cultural matrix in which he was speaking was Tibetan-Italian. 

If you are neither Tibetan nor Italian and you want things in a more Western mindset, Alan Watts has a nice book out. Alan Watts has, Alan Wallace, I’m sorry, B. Alan Wallace. Western context. Not specifically Tibetan lineage, but useful nonetheless if you want your stuff in western, Alan Wallace is a scholarly nerd and practitioner. [Dreaming Yourself Awake – B. Alan Wallace]

But if you want the real text, the deep text, the text with all the stuff in it, go for Bon. There’s a beautiful text out by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep all the bits are in there. Highly recommended if you want it, although he’s westernized, has lived in the West. Again he wrote this some time ago. It is still within Tibetan cultural structure which means I prefer it. Because I’d like to make my transferences myself, rather than count on another translator or interpreter or scholar to do them for me. That’s personality.

If you are generally following my teachings, you like them explained a little bit in western context and might really enjoy Alan Wallace’s. Norbu Rinpoche’s is very traditional, but just the pith please, not all the other possible ways you could do in case of this or that. So these are your choices. You still need a teacher for Dream Yoga. You need teachings because it’s never quite all in the books.

My first teacher of Dream Yoga, my first teachings on Dream Yoga were at the age of three. I wish I knew what lineage it was my father practiced. Some form of Voodoo, Yoruba, Southern Baptist, Satanism, maybe. Without, I’m not sure he died when I was eight, before I realized the importance of lineage to ask the questions. I suspect he practiced a mishmash of things. He was an atheist, towards the Christian God. Did not believe in it. Not just didn’t worship it – didn’t even think it existed. And a communist and a sorcerer. Or at least he seems to have told his small child that he was a sorcerer and taught magic to her.

The memories of 3-4-5-6-7-year-old are all I have of his teachings, but that was my first teachings on Dream Yoga.

And I have been doing it off and on when not distracted by other things in my life, pretty much since. I have also studied it in the Lakota lineage, the druid lineage, the Wiccan lineage. I think those guys were Wiccan. I would say in those lineages. If I start talking about something that is not Tibetan, I will tell you “this piece of information is not Tibetan.” It comes from here or it comes from there.

How Dreams Happen

So, I want to talk about how dreams happen.

There are different kinds of dreams that you will encounter. Dreams created by karmic traces and dreams created from and out of clarity from entering dream-time in a state of meditation. If any of you were in yesterday’s retreat on the Inner Body Rushen. That set of practices synergizes really nicely with Dream Yoga. So I hope some of you from that retreat have decided to join us today because those two go great together.

As you work on unraveling the cricks in your chakras, which is what the, this is looking up a word, Kunzhi Namshe (kun-gzhi rnam-shes). I knew I knew that word. Alaya vijnana – storehouse of karmic formations. This is what they’re made, that it’s made of. It’s not a place. It’s actually, your karmic patterns are stored in your energy body as cricks, matted bits, entanglements, cramps. Your energy body is in reality your rainbow body, but you are unable to perceive that due to the stuff stuck in your kunzhi-namzhi.

Entering rainbow body is simply clearing the Kunzhi Namshe (kun-gzhi rnam-shes) sufficiently, all the way, so that there is no Kunzhi Namshe and you can perceive rainbow body directly. Or rather, no, you can perceive the five colored lights of the rainbows which make up the essence of the dance of perception arising out of fundamental vitality and are no longer consumed by squeakies as energy flows through crooked bits.

So, the type of dream that almost everybody has most of the time is occurring as your consciousness descends from daily life into the Kunzhi Namshe and starts experiencing these karmic formations as patterns and as experiences. You use up karma in the dream-time but you also create karma in the dream-time. You perform actions, you do things, and so create patterns – habit patterns.

So a really sweet way that they say this in here: “During the day, consciousness illuminates the senses and we experience the world, weaving sensory and psychic experiences into the meaningful whole of our life.” This is your normal day-to-day experience. At night, consciousness withdraws from the senses and resides in the base which is the cringy analogy. The consciousness instead of illuminating the senses, illuminates the) obscurations karmic traces, glitches and gunks. And these manifest as your dream.

These karmic whistles, these squeakies in the channel as the lung rides through them and your perception is based on this, create a set of dream sensations. And of course, you construct a narrative from those and that itself is the dream.

During the day as your consciousness rises to engage with your sense organs, you’re still engaged in the same dream making process. You project the interactivity of mind into the world and think that your experiences are real. So there isn’t that much difference between day and night.

So once you have balanced your sleep, using the different available methods, the next thing that you need to do is start paying attention. Your attention is mobile. When I introduce you to tawa by pointing out the totality of your own nature, the totality of mind. When I introduce you in that way, what I do is, I ask you to shift your attention from the dweebles and blinks of phenomena, which is always moving, changing and very interesting and distracting (like my cup of coffee). To shift your attention from all that stuff (outer phenomena and inner phenomena as well), because you’re paying attention to what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling and what you’re doing about that. Trying to fix it, feel better, think more Dharma thoughts, think a happy thought, Don’t be grouchy. I mean, you’re always up to something trying to fix the external and focus in on it.

So in the teachings of meditation, you simply, by unfocusing your eyes since your attention follows your eyeballs, and if you look at something you will pay attention to it. You just do. I mean look around you, look at different things. You’ll notice that your attention goes to the thing you’re looking at. So attention follows the eyeballs to a great extent. So you unfocus your eyeballs so they’re not looking at anything. You open your attention from the normal point focus of day-to-day life into a, not-blurry open awareness which is not point-focused.

What you are doing as you move in the beginning, from normal day today putzing about, to sitting on your cushion and meditating is shifting your attention from phenomena to nature of mind. Since nature of mind is not in a place, it cannot be perceived by point focus, which is all about looking here and there. So you have to let go of that. So, since most of you have been meditating a while, you know all about how to shift your attention. Well you gotta shift your attention to notice in your dreams.

Methods for Remembering Dreams

The standard Tibetan method which generally works only for those whose sleep is deep enough that they don’t notice the dreams (don’t try this if you’ve got insomnia!) this method is simply to visualize a white AH. Although some teachings have that white AH be in the heart chakra, or sometimes there’s a red AH in the throat chakra.

There are different things, the most basic as I was taught, it is that the white AH is not in a place. You do not focus your attention on the white AH with point, focus or rather you start that way. You can point your focus at the white AH, but then, you release point focus while maintaining attention on the AH, which is in mind, made of the light of mind. Being in mind, it’s not in a particular place inside you or outside of you, as neither is your mind. AH is the primal letter, the primal sound of voice, the speech chakras that have intent.

Letters, words are the basis of monlam, wish path, setting of intent, this is how the all works. But the basic and most simple teaching that I have had is you don’t put it in a place. However there are teachings that you do put it in a place, and I will go into more depth on those later. I believe Norbu Rinpoche puts it in the heart chakra or sometimes puts a red one in the speech chakra. However, I think that it works a bit faster if you don’t first stick it in a place. You see it in your mind, which isn’t in a place, for a true mind.

The totality, the Buddha nature is neither here nor there, neither now nor then. For, here and there and now and then are little ideas that crop up in mind and dissolve in mind. And sometimes they’re there and sometimes they’re not. And mind is always there. So, I’m going to give you a variety of methods as well, of drawing your attention to dream-time, so that you can wake up in your dream.

The first is you’ve got to remember your dreams. But, Tibetan method is to arrange that something awakens you during REM time. As can be your partner, your friend or for scholars, some Tibetans do take notes or write it down. You want a book that means something to you. It was given to me by a Russian student and it’s very beautiful leather bound notebook, embossed and a pen. That means something to you. The beads on this lovely pen were done by one of my students. It takes a long time. With Sanskrit words: Anata, Luca, and the date.

So with a pen that you use for that purpose only and a notebook that you use for that purpose only. I think a little bit of Wiccan crept in there. Sorry about that. Tibetans usually tell their cave mate their dreams. They use people. Rarely do Tibetans live alone. Even in retreat, you often have someone in retreat with you who is preparing your food and you take turns, or you’re both in retreat, take turns, prepare. Most Tibetans tend to make solitary retreats when working on specific solitary practices, but be quite comfortable making retreats with a friend. And they mostly form pairs and triplets and quadruplets of friend, team persons who live together and support each other called ropa. Even Tibetan marriages are usually more than just two people; two people isn’t enough to maintain a herd and raise kids. I don’t know how you Americans do it and Westerners do it with just marrying two people. Ever since my third died, we have been somewhat short on people to get everything done around here. So just a two person marriage almost as bad as being a single mother. Just not enough hands. You end up exhausted. Anyway, degression.

So, the Tibetan method of this, the pure Tibetan method is you tell your ropa. You develop a habit of having, or your ropa wakes you when your eyelids are moving. You ever watch your dogs sleep? Their eyes go back and forth and then will pause, twitch. You do that too in a dream. So your ropa wakes you up when that’s happening and in that moment you tell them out loud (with speech), your dream. This is the pure Tibetan method of learning to remember your dreams. Very few. A lot of Tibetans do dream yoga who are not really, they don’t write easily. So the notebook and pen method is only for the scholars and the easy writers.

I think the pen that only does that and book that’s only for that, is Wiccan. And the Tibetan, you get a pen and then a book because you normally don’t have one and you reserve it for that because paper is hard to come by. More practical reasons rather than esoteric reasons for the Wiccan one, which is a matter of holding energy.

There are other methods. Western, from my childhood, you get a specific stuffed animal that you have very great closeness to and as soon as you wake up, either during the night or in the morning, you take them, you keep them by your bed. You cuddle them in your sleep and you tell them all your dreams out loud in words. That’s my first teaching on how to remember dreams. This is my possum. I raised the baby possum once; he’s involved in many stories. His name was Naropa. So I don’t know what lineage the stuffed animal was.

Wiccan: You get a pretty crystal that means something to you. You put it by your bed, you wake up, you say it out loud to the crystal. Crystals hold energy really well. So, as you speak to the crystal it helps you to imprint and remember your dreams. I have heard a Tibetan version of this.

A statue of your yidam, this is Tara. Talk to it. Make a friend of it. Some statues talk back. You may even find it talking to you and meeting you in your dreams. But you can if you do not have a ropa, you can tell a statue of your yidam dreams. You keep it by the bed. As soon as you wake up, you talk to it out loud. If you’re worried about waking the person next to you, you should be waking them and telling them.

Lakota: This is a talking stick. When you have meetings in Lakota lineage, to keep everybody from interrupting each other, you need one of these. It’s a decorated stick. How it’s decorated is entirely up to you. But it should make it look really different from other sticks.

So in meetings, the stick gets passed around and whoever has the stick gets to talk uninterrupted, get out what they wanted to say. It sounds like it’ll make the meeting longer and it kind of does at first. But once you’re used to it, you learn to become concise. So you get a talking stick. You tell the stick you can make yourself a talking stick very easily.

This is a hair stick carved with a toucan. I like toucans so I could easily create a dream stick out of this. That I used only for dreams by attaching a bright colored piece of cloth feathers or beads to it tying them on with string or attaching with glue. It has a good hand feel. You want it a little brighter than this. You can find it in the dark. If you can get glow in the dark beads, it’s great to attach them to your dream stick. Lakota method, you make a dream stick, it’s similar to a talking stick. So I would make one out of this, that I have lying around the house, used for keeping my top knot in place when I feel like wearing a toucan.

These are all different methods of remembering your dreams. Have we got questions on any of these methods coming up so far?

Questions

Nyondo: Yeah, we have a number of questions. First, did you already mention melatonin and whether it was…

LL: Melatonin is okay. It’s what I use when I can’t get to sleep and I’ve had no interference with doing Dream Yoga.

Nyondo: What is false dawn, you mentioned that much earlier?

LL: Oh, there is, long before the sun is ready to come up. But it’s usually what gets the birds going. First birdsong usually happens in the pitch dark and then there’s a slight bit of light and you think, okay, dawn is coming, but it doesn’t. It even seems to get a bit darker after that. I’m not sure what spheric phenomena that is. But it’s a change in energy, which does not lead to the sun coming up, and it’s called false dawn and it’s well before dawn.

If you were to not be partying all night, but be partying until about 3am, out doing things, not anymore, not these days. Up with a good book or movie until about 3am and then decide to stay up and see the dawn because it was solstice or astrologically conducive, you would then, if you were quiet, notice these different times. Other questions?

Nyondo: What about using a voice recorder to record?

LL: Ah yes, thank you for reminding me. There’s a couple of Western methods, modern tech, nothing to do with the old lineages. Record it on your cell phone. There’s even a dream yoga machine. I haven’t tried it. I haven’t been able to justify to myself the expenditure of four or 500 bucks for a machine when four or 500 bucks would keep a Tibetan in a nicely comfortable retreat for an entire year. So I haven’t been able to justify spending that much on a toy; but I’ve been curious about them. I’ve seen them advertised. They are a pair of glasses and they do what your ropa is supposed to do. If you don’t have a ropa or you don’t want to get your roommate into doing this with you, your partner, (they’ve got other things they’re busy with, they need their sleep). So it’s like a visor and it somehow notices when you go into REM sleep, your eyeball movement and it will slowly shine a brightening light on your eyes, to bring you to consciousness within the dream. Or to wake you just a little bit gently so you can remember the dream.

I believe it’s got a couple of different settings. If any of you have the disposable income to try one, go for it. You can get them online. I’ll look them up and by next session have the URL for that for you. It’s a couple of different companies that make them. I’ve never tried one; I don’t know if they work or not. They sound like a really nice technological idea. So if any of you geeks have the money for it, give it a try. If any of you geeks happen to be rolling in money, because you invented some programs, I wouldn’t mind trying one myself, I’ll tell you all if it’s worth investing in. But I have not, from the way my income works as simply a Dharma teacher, which is pretty full-time for me, and I’m not holding a secondary job on top of it. I got out of the habit when there was so much travel involved, that I couldn’t work as a doctor because it wasn’t fair to my patients to never be there. So I retired from that. So, I haven’t been able to justify the portion of the income I get from dana. That would be for a toy rather than something needed over in among the Tibetans and among students. But do let me know if you decide to try it and how it works. I’m really quite curious. So these are a couple of Western methods. I did want to mention the visor in case some of you nerdlies out there want to go experiment with it. I suppose a group of you could purchase it together and pass it back and forth and share it if you were in the same pod. COVID pod.

Other questions?

Nyondo: Do we need a lung or some kind of transmission to practice Dream Yoga?

LL: That’s what you’re getting right now. No you don’t so much need a lung as a tri. Dream Yoga is not text based. These texts were all written by living lamas. Well, Norbu Rinpoche’s no longer with us. But people we know – Alan Wallace is, Tenzin Wangyal is. So be because these were written in English, the traditional Tibetan lung method for ancient texts probably, in my opinion, doesn’t apply. Different cultural matrix. Word patterns are different. Tibetan phrases in traditional texts are fractals with the exception of one text, Words of My Precious Teacher, which is a fully opened text that you don’t seem to need a lung for, or a tri. It’s all, it’s wide open. Most texts are fractals. Each phrase contains a number of syllables and each syllable has 3,5,7 layers of meaning.

If you go to my Facebook page photos a few back, you will find a picture of a Tibetan text done as a quilt, which you read in all the different directions like a star. It’s beautiful, and each syllable in that text has meanings within meanings. So for most of these Tibetan texts, you need not only the lung, but you pretty much need somebody to open the text for you; to open, unfold the fractal, which is why we say you can’t get it just from the book. It’s a fractal folded up. It’s an origami.

Someone who understands has received from someone before them the unfolding, how to unfold this text, what it unfolds into, needs to unfold it for you. Whereas these texts were, as to the best of my knowledge written unfolded. Which is why I’m sitting here waving them at you and telling you go ahead and get whichever one seems like it will be most conducive for your personality. Start with one. If you start with too many at once, you’re just going to overwhelm yourself. So pick one totally traditional, but well written in English, accessible and doable Tibetan tradition. Well translated into a Western Tibetan tradition. Well translated into a Western cultural matrix. And I swear I saw some Wiccan in there.

Nyondo: Next question, some questions about dream experiences. Frequently within the dream, I feel lethargic and I can’t act within the dream although I recognize it. What does this numbness mean within the dream itself, how to overcome it?

LL: You have a karmic quirk, crick. I’d run a bunch of Vajrasattva, or do the inner speech rushen depending on where you are – sorry, inner mind, inner body rushen – depending on where you are in your practice and see if I can get that crick out to improve my Dream Yoga. Because that’s probably going to be getting itself here and there in your daily life as well. Senses of powerlessness or lethargic, inability to decide, or inability to move.

Nyondo: Yep. Okay. What is happening when you wake up, but the dream seems to continue?

LL: You still got one foot in the dream-time. I do that a lot. That’s really nice because then that’s how you do the skimming thing where you wake up and then you put your white AH, you notice your white AH, you go into trekchod and different levels if you’re capable of it. And you go back in trekchod or you can go back in and change something. Or you can go back in with where you want the dream to go, lucidly.

So, when that’s happening, that’s actually a useful time. When you’re able to straddle the sill and have one foot (speaking analogously), one foot in dream-time and one foot in wake time. Then you can slide back and forth. If you are tired enough and have an easy enough – but not too easy – time going to sleep if you’ve got your insomnia/sleepiness balance nicely. You can, as you enter dream-time usually, as you fall asleep in the beginning of the night, you skim through a really short dream-time on the way in and then go into theta wave. If you can enter that really short dream-time, consciously in trekchod, you can remain in trekchod through theta. You can even remain in yidam practice through Theta and then re-emerge in it into the dream-time, which is a very powerful but more advanced practice that I will go into more in future teachings on this.

I’m taking you slowly. The way I was taught, the way it is traditionally taught. You get the first bit, how to, what are dreams, how do they work? How to balance your sleepiness, wakefulness, different methods of doing that, recommendations of herbal products that work, of things that don’t work. You do this, get it balanced, and you work on remembering your dreams for a week or so. You get that working. You base the next teaching on top of that, which is why these aren’t three days in a row. I’m giving you time if you’re going to work with this. To delve further by your own experience to experience it in the process of the teaching. Next question.

Nyondo: I wake up in intense terror about death. Should I sit up, use Om AH Hung, do a deity or yidam practice? What should I do?

LL: You have again a karmic formation that is causing this experience to repeat until it resolves. Which is probably going to be when you die. Your best bet is to take refuge before you go to sleep. You can also call on Tara with her mantra, doing a Tara practice before sleep. And then, as you sleep, lay your head on her lap. I had a pillow given to me by another lama with a picture of Tara on it. Which I ended up giving to a friend who was very ill, who was very into Tara practice, so that she could sleep with her head in Tara’s lap. Try some of these. Eventually, we will get to the point if you continue with dream yoga practice, where you can face your death in the dream-time and walk through it and resolve the karma that is manifesting as this intense fear. But first we’re going to have to stop interrupting your sleep so you can remember dream, stop panicking you in sleep. So for that, refuge and sleeping with your head in Tara’s lap holding her hand. Next question.

Developing Lucidity

Nyondo: Let’s see. I remember my dreams mostly but have little clarity or lucidity in sleep. Even when absurd things happen, how can I develop more lucidity?

LL: So, for the developing of lucidity there are a couple of different methods.

Tibetan method, again, involves the White AH. Once you’re remembering your dreams, to wake up in your dreams is going to be the next point, to notice you are dreaming. One of the simplest methods for that which Tibetan, is to notice you are dreaming all day.

Now there is a… it’s not Lakota. It’s Yaqui? It’s one of the Native American minds that I’ve encountered in passing but it might be… Yeah, I think it’s Southern Yaqui (not the northern Lakota) which is to help you do that, to help you remember during the day that this, too, is a dream, is to get a ring that bugs you. Can you all see this big old ring? It’s a really nice ring but it’s big enough and I use my hands enough that wearing it bugs me. This can’t be your normal wedding ring or something you wear every day. You would put it either on this finger which has a channel, your ring finger of either hand which has a channel that runs to the heart. The heart channel runs through there. It’s why in certain practices you close your fist like this with your thumb pushing on the base of that finger.

So anyway, you put the ring either on this finger [ring finger] or on this finger [index finger], which relates to the speech chakra and intent. This is the finger of intent, your pointer finger. So this [ring finger] has more to do with feelings and emotional tone and this [index finger] has more to do with monlam, wish path, letters. So you have a choice which one you want to emphasize and you put a ring that’s clunky enough to buggy a bit. And all day every time you notice the damn thing on your hand while it bugs you, you notice that you are dreaming right now.

This works by a really simple method. Have you ever driven a really long distance all day and then dreamt you were still driving at night? Really common occurrence. So as you walk about the day emphasizing an awareness that you are dreaming, allowing a slightly annoying ring, or bracelet, or pair of glasses with dangly things – just something that is going to hit your attention a lot – to remind you to notice that you are dreaming. That, itself, will carry over into the dream-time this will not give you full clarity-level dreamings, it will be more likely to bring you lucid in karmic dreams. Remember, we talked about the two categories of dreams, karmic formations from this life or past lives? Truly that category divides into two categories being: karmic formations from this life and karmic formations from past lives. And they feel different – you can recognize which is which. Now, that comes later.

So, that’s a really simple method. The other method that will actually lead you into lucidity in clarity dreams (which are more difficult) is to sleep, go to sleep in trekchod. Or, with your attention open in mind, placing the white AH there in mind. There’s no “there” to that there where. So visualizing the white AH but not in a location in open awareness. As the nature of the intent of lucidity. These are two simple ways.

Next week, I’m going to go more in-depth for you in ways of causing lucidity bringing forth lucidity. This week is more about getting you into focusing your attention on dream-time. Although, since some of you already have your sleep balanced and have your remembering dreams, I will give you these two fairly direct and simple methods. It’s the noticing that you’re dreaming and it helps if you say it out loud, monlam. Notice that this is a dream, just like any other dream. Karmic patterns arising being interpreted as sensory experiences, as phenomena. No difference. I am dreaming. Pattern that enough during the day and the pattern will continue in the night. The white AH will lead to an automatic lucidity and clarity which is a higher state but more difficult for some. Other questions?

Nyondo: Here’s a practical one. Can you practice Dream Yoga if you use a CPAP machine

LL: I don’t see why not. I have never used a CPAP machine. I think the keys to practicing Dream Yoga – and there’s nothing, of course, in the ancient texts about Dream Yoga with a cpap machine – however, I’m somewhat familiar with them and I don’t see why not. In fact, especially if you’re working with the white AH and clarity dreams, having ease of breathing caused by a sleep CPAP or a BIPAP is actually quite important.

If your breathing is obscured or obstructed, it is very difficult to have dreams of clarity. Such as it’s very cold and you’ve curled up with your head under the blankets that will often disperse the clarity of clarity dreams because you’re not getting enough oxygen. I’m talking heavy blankets. So I would say it should not be a hindrance. You may have to modify your bedside table so that you can get at whatever you’re using to talk your dreams to.

When I should think it would be a problem, I think it would actually be helpful if you had sleep apnea because sleep apnea is a bugger for dream yoga. It really does interfere.

Next question.

Nyondo: Let me find it. A couple of people had questions where it seemed they were dreaming and their dream was connected with a second person’s dream or somebody else’s dream.

LL: What was the question about those? Yeah, it happens.

Nyondo: So, yeah. And also somebody had a question about, what about dreams that occurred the night after receiving an initiation?

LL: Two kinds. If you have a lot of karmic traces intensely in your alaya vijnana, you may dream symbolically about your karmic relationship to that wang. Conversely, if you are a relatively strong practitioner of trekchod and have been cleaning out your karmic patterns for some time, you may dream interaction with the archetype of that wang which is very powerful and is a clarity dream.

Trekchod purifies karmic stuff faster than any other method. It’s actually more effective than Vajrasattva. If you do it right, if you’re good at it. Thoughts that arise as a result of karmas, if neither grasped nor rejected nor followed, dissolve back into mind as mind, exhausts, uses up the karma that caused them without creating a new one. The moment you grasp a thought, follow a thought, like a thought, don’t like a thought, muck about with a thought, poke at a thought, entertain a thought. You are creating further karma and not clearing your karmic storehouse. The same with emotions when you feel an emotion, if you suppress the emotion, if you act on the emotion to feel better, if you code the emotion, if you entertain the emotion, if you justify the emotion, if you do anything at all with the emotion, you’re creating more karma. Whereas if you allow the emotion to arise in its pristine naked state as that and you don’t poke it, leave it be as it is. The karma causing that entire pattern is unraveling by the experience and you are not creating more because you are not doing anything about it.

When I teach “working with emotions”, I teach how to begin doing this. Where the emotion arises with its attendant story and then you go into the action of stripping the attendant story off and then getting its underwear (which is its name) off. So it’s a whole process, but at some point that ceases, with practice with enough practice of that, that ceases to be a process and becomes simply an occurrence and the emotion arises naked and dissolves when it’s done naked. And since you haven’t grasped it or dressed it or done anything with it whatsoever except allowing it to be as it is, no karma of deed is created to replace the karma that was exhausted by the experience. And so I think of it in Sanskrit – alaya vijnana – thins out through a lot of practice of trekchod while thinking and feeling. You can speed this up with togyal but your trekchod needs already to be able to do this before you try and speed up the process, otherwise you just get more stuff. Next question.

Nyondo: How to develop better boundaries so other practitioners cannot control your dream and come into it?

LL: It’s not a boundary, well, the Wiccans would call it a boundary issue, the Tibetans would call it a karmic issue. So Tibetan answer, trekchod. It is a particular quirk that you are experiencing. This particular quirk in your karmic patterns, a pag-cha. Trekchod is the fastest way to purify a pag-cha. However, if your trekchod isn’t all that good that you don’t think you can get it to do that, go with Vajrasattva. It’s your pagcha, you get to clean it out.

Now in the Wiccan tradition this would be seen as a boundary issue and setting a circle around your bed, there would be instructions for how to do that and how to make a proper circle around your bed and what would break a circle. But this is not a Wiccan teaching. This is Tibetan teaching. And if you actually want that, go find a Wiccan.

I will look and see if there is a shaman/Bon teaching on that. Looking through some of my texts where if there is it would be and let you know next week, but that’s what I’ve got for you right now.

Nyondo: For practice there’s a number of specific questions, people asking, can you tell your dreams to a pet, for example, or to a picture of your yidam?

LL: Yes. Yes to a picture of your yidam. Probably yes to your dog, but I doubt your cat will be interested.

Nyondo: Well, there might be one.

LL: It might be.

Nyondo: We had one that would might have.

LL: If your pet is willing. Your lizard? Easy. They hold still. Your ferret, might be a bit problematic. They don’t hold still.

Nyondo: Also, for the waking up, does it also work if you set the alarm on your phone to wake you up every few hours?

LL: Only if you don’t have to go to work the next day. And I wouldn’t have it wake me up every few hours. Let yourself get your theta done first. I would start it at maybe two or three in the morning and have it wake me just once there. Try that the first night. See, if that was my dream-time, I would try the second night if that had been my dream-time, I might see how long it had taken me to lose consciousness and lose my clarity, my lucidity, after that awakening. And I might set it for say an hour later or half an hour later. But don’t do this if you have to go to work the next day because it will interfere with you getting enough sleep and you’re going to need a nap. Don’t be driving a car when you’re over tired. I had a friend die of that after a 48 hour shift as a paramedic. Next.

Nyondo: Did you say that actions we perform in dream-time create karma? So we can’t say “oh, I’ll try this, it won’t affect others”.

LL: You can say “I’ll try this, it won’t affect others”. It is the emotions and the actions on emotions in dream-time that do create karma.

Nyondo: Why does chanting the Vajra Guru mantra or Mani mantra end nightmares?

LL: There are patterns, tracks, created via monlam in the universal shared unconscious, in the sambhogakaya. And due to those patterns which are mutually shared karmically, they’re in your alaya vijnana, as well as others. They’re a group karma, shared universal unconscious issue, and fairly local (as in homosapien). Because of that, they affect your karmic storehouse and can be used to block the manifestations of certain kinds of negative karma that lead to nightmares. Next.

Nyondo: If you’re dreaming and you have masters or spiritual teachers, or dakinis, in your dream, is that significant? Is there something that’s going on there?

LL: Extremely. Yes. Usually, those are dreams of clarity. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it is a dream of clarity or not. For example, in regular karmic dreams, you cannot read the same piece of paper or page of a book twice, it changes. In clarity dreams, from a certain state of open focus, not unfocused, but open-minded focus, you can. That’s how you get dream termas. But if it changes every time you look at it, it ain’t a dream terma. It’s a dream. Teachings are often given in dreams. The last session of these teachings will be given in the dream-time. Certain things can’t be taught about dream yoga here. They have to be shown. We’ve got several more sessions on the internet before we even go there. I think I answered that to the best of my ability. Dream-time, especially once you start entering clarity level, is a place as well as a state of mind. Just like this is a place as well as the state of mind. Next question.

Nyondo: A couple of questions about recurring dreams, about the significance of elements if they don’t change and what the significance is if they do change over time, the difference between those things?

LL: If they do change, it’s changing karmic patterns. And if they don’t change, it’s a repeating karmic pattern that probably needs your attention to deal with. Repeaters are asking for your attention, they’re karmic patterns attempting to manifest in some way or another, and not quite being able to complete themselves. Or your reaction to them each time somehow codes them so that they come again. There’s a wide variety for repeaters. Usually you’re coding it somewhere. It’s waiting for you to actually develop enough clarity in the dream-time to allow the full occurrence of that display to unravel without tightening it up again. And until you manage that, a repeater is likely to repeat for you.

Nyondo: An interesting question about learning in the dream-time. When you receive these teachings in the dream-time, is it still absorbed if you don’t remember it when you wake up?

LL: Yes, some teachings can not be remembered when awake because they don’t fit in a homosapien channel pattern which you will immediately put on when you wake up. So you won’t remember exactly, for instance, if you listen to the sonar poetry of whales and found Dzogchen inspiration in it. You may remember in words that this happened, but not what it felt like. Can’t bring that back here. Learning how to change species in dream-time, cannot be taught in the awake time, and yet has value. It’s Druid. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Nyondo: What is the significance of dying but remaining aware, out-of-body, in the dream? The body is dead, but I am still aware.

LL: Probably a past-life memory. Happens on sudden death rather easily, especially with trauma. Also certain comas.

Nyondo: Can you comment a bit about the gom-tree and the gom-ter, the meditation belt in the meditation chair and how you use them for this, or is that a later teaching?

LL: Okay, the gom-tree is built to size for the individual that’s using it. The gom-ter is also made to size for the individual using it. This is fairly important. You don’t want one that’s too big or too small for you. And me, at five-foot-three or five-foot-four (I think five-foot-three now, I’m shrinking), would not be comfortable in the gom-tree or the gom-ter of someone six foot two; and, they wouldn’t be able to fit in mine, it wouldn’t work. So standing up, the gom-ter is twice as long as from the top of your top knot to the floor, not counting the fringe on the edge.

The gom-tree is square, made of wood, twice the distance from your fingertips to your elbow. The gom-ter, the meditation sash must be at least as wide as your palm. Otherwise it’ll cut into you. Usually it’s folded triple to give it some structure depending on the cloth you had made of. For ngakpas and ngakmos red silk is traditional; for monks and nuns yellow silk is traditional. In Bon, you would embroider a small blue swastika at one end. Doesn’t mean what it means in Europe.
I think you do a double dorje embroidered on a Nyingma one.

So both of these are so that you can relax your muscles while remaining upright. There are also airplanes and ice cream, amazing Westerners! All sorts of things that go around the small of your back and cup your knees and do different things to make you stay upright, meditation seats, chairs, different things available from yoga shops for Westerners, and many of them work great. In fact, I bought one for Ani Boonchu who was old, very old, a great meditator, but getting back aches from where she was sitting in puja without a backrest, due to age. I got her one of the Western ones. That was a backrest in the bottom that you sit on and worked great. And it was a portable so she could carry it to the gompa when she was going to be there in ceremony and not get a backache. So, go ahead and be creative.

The purpose of both of these is so that you can be sitting up in a proper meditative position without pain and without having to use your muscles to hold you up. So that if you fall asleep, you don’t fall over. Some go to the point of putting a hook at the top of their gom-tree which extends at least a finger above your top knot, and attaching their hair to it to keep their head from falling over. But personally, I find that uncomfortable and I like those airplane pillows better. Only us Westerners, my teachers said, could ever have come up with the wondrous phenomena of airplanes and ice cream. Next.

Nyondo: A couple of questions about going to sleep while in trekchod. If one goes into deep sleep whilst in trekchod does one consciously remember that after waking up in the morning?

LL: Not in the way you consciously remember occurrences. You remember it the way you remember trekchod when you’re not in it. You know it was there but your memory does not encompass the sensation unless you return into it.

The key to accomplishing trekchod is never to leave it. Easier said than done. Let’s have another question or two.

Nyondo: Okay, let me take a look here. There’s quite a few different ones. Can you… I don’t remember what you said about CBD oil. There was one question from somebody who…

LL: I have no idea how that affects the dream-time. I find for me, it affects it poorly. Makes it lots of fun and I remember the dreams but I don’t get any clarity. And that’s the whole point. The end goal of Dream Yoga is clarity. So I find that CBD, for me, interferes. But I have no textual reference to tell you how that works and that’s not the oil topically, I’m talking about either eating it or smoking it. I have not tried the oil topically at sleep time to see what that does. I don’t have a pain that that’s necessary for. So probably topically it would not affect much. I have slept with a lidocane patch once. Wasn’t on purpose. I think I was on an airplane. But there was some clarity that occurred. Not much but some. So I’m guessing topical is not that hindering. I think it doesn’t go that much in the system and is more just in the place. Next.

Nyondo: How are kinks worked out of the Kunzhi Namshe, (did I pronounce that right)?

LL: Yes, You did. By not poking it. Karmic kinks. There are practices that accelerate the removal of karmic kinks. Trekchod is the fastest with the exception of togyal. But you need trekchod to do togyal anyway. So what that is, how that’s done. I’ll tell you the best one first.

Arising, there arises an experience. The experience contains and interprets sensory stuff, this is in dream-time. So you dream you are taking a walk and you meet a black dog. You’re dreaming the sight of the black dog, the feeling of the, under your feet, the pavement you’re walking on, the wind against your skin, all of these sensations, the sound of wherever you are, are being stimulated by chi [lung] moving through cricks in the Kunzhi Namshe and so arising and being interpreted as perceptions, which is sensations made into a coherency.

So, you get… this is the karmic experience of a coherency. Now, there are parts of the coherency which is the story you tell yourself about why and where you were walking, and what you were doing, and the black dog, and what you think it will do. And then there’s the emotion – you are happy to see it, you’re afraid to see it. So, all of these things are arising. If you do not grasp, entertain, do something about the feeling, the perception, the thought sensation, if you let them be as they are in trekchod, none of them, none of those things have substance or duration.

You allow them to arise and disappear naturally without grasping or rejecting. In normal day-to-day life, everything arises with its attendant, all perceptions arise with attendant thoughts and feelings, if you notice them (of want, of not want). And that feeling arises together with you taking an action of deciding to act on it or not act on it. And both of those create karma. So, perception, “there’s still some coffee in here”. That was an interpretation of a sensory input of a gurgle that I heard when I shook this performed in action. So I’m already in a dream. So now I have to decide, will I drink the coffee or not, perhaps not just to show I can. That’s an action. Perhaps I’ll drink it because I want it.
That’s an action. To drink it or to not drink it are both actions creating karma, refraining from acting as an action. It’s called refraint.

So as long as you act, as long as there is a doing involved, it doesn’t unravel. It ravels. It is by the not doing of neither doing it nor refraining from doing it in trekchod that allows the unraveling of the display. If you don’t, are unable to accomplish this non-accomplishment reliably then you can use either Vajrasattva or the inner body rushen to unravel some of these.

Nyondo: We also have a couple of questions about sleep paralysis and paralysis in dreams. What causes sleep paralysis and what does it mean if you are paralyzed in a dream?

LL: It’s a karmic formation, depending on whether you are “you” as you know yourself in situations familiar to you – in which case it is a current attempting, currently manifesting, current-life-caused karmic formation (such as a story you heard as a child that left an imprint or something). Someone you knew who was paralyzed, a set of feelings, you had emotions, which you either suppressed or did something about. When you saw someone in a wheelchair who was paralyzed or in an iron lung or read about them, this life. Or if the circumstances are not familiar to you or the person you are, is not familiar to you, different gender, different culture, different person altogether, different personality, it’s more likely a past life karma trying to manifest. It’s a particular karmic formation. And sleep paralysis, the paralysis that comes when you wake up and can’t move has to do with a release of a certain hormone which is caused by certain karmic formations. These are all karmic type dreams.

Nyondo: Can you use shamanic drumming techniques to achieve lucid dream-time?

LL: Yes, that’s Lakota system, is where I’m familiar with those, and yes you can. Don’t talk to anything with teeth.

Nyondo: Next, if I get teachings from you in the dream-time, does that mean you are my teacher?

LL: It does not mean I am your root teacher. It means, if you get those teachings, like them and take them to heart and practice them, it means I am one of your teachers. You get to have lots. I’m not monogamous.

Nyondo: Next, a couple of questions about the Akashic records and accessing those in the dream.

LL: That’s Wiccan and it’s a bugger, and there’s lots of traps around it. Get good at it before you give a try at that. There’s things with teeth. There’s other stuff. There’s Wiccan’s method of doing it. The Catholics have a thing about it and stuck some demons there. So it’s a little complex to work with, you can.

I like the Tibetan one better where all the termas are. I think it’s got a better file system. Even if you can get into the Akashic records, the filing system is so multi-dimensional. It’s really hard to find anything. Whereas where the Tibetans keep the termas, nice filing system. You can find stuff and much prefer it; but that’s me. Personal opinion. You, that’s an advanced practice to try to go there and I’m not teaching it right now because there’s so many cautions and safeties, and anyway, it’s not Tibetan, it’s Wiccan. Next.

Nyondo: If you’re a night owl, do you adjust the timing of these practices to your own rhythms?

LL: Yes. You either adjust your rhythms to standard or adjust the timing of the practices to the rhythms that you’ve chosen to keep. Your choice.

Nyondo: If I’m a light sleeper, do I use the candle above my head?

LL: No, make the room darker. Make it cooler and add blankets. You can even try a white noise machine if you feel that that helps. If you are a light sleeper, you see, you want your sleep to be at an exactly right balance which is on the light side, but not so tipped into lightness that you end up not being able to get into the dream-time easily. So if you’ve got absolute midline here, and this is those deep sleepers that the house can burn down and they won’t notice, and this is those total insomniacs that can’t get to sleep unless they take something, you want to be right about here. Just off midline towards the light side. And you want to adjust your environment, your sleeping position, your mattress, whatever you need to. So that that’s where you are.

Nyondo: You mentioned the things with teeth earlier. Someone asked, should you always try to take refuge when you meet a deity archetype? Just In case they aren’t who they appear to be?

LL: Yes, there are things that aren’t what they appear to be. I have almost gotten snookered by one of those about… it was only a couple of years ago. Taking refuge, saying the Guru Rinpoche mantra is usually effective to find out. Now admittedly, I talk to things with teeth because I find them interesting. The only problem is sometimes they follow you home. I’ve gotten in trouble with my family for that before. Oh Druid one: don’t put things in your pockets. Especially if you don’t know what they are.

Nyondo: Next, is it safe to practice dream yoga in a place that is not my normal bed? For instance, in a hotel while traveling?

LL: Safe, yes. Likely, no. I have done a lot of traveling as a teacher and found that it’s just not the time for any decent Dream Yoga. Partly that is, my diurnal rhythms were always totally cracked because I lived in jetlag and partly because I just never had any success at it in the middle of that. So it’s safe but more difficult, let me put it that way. I found out I either disturbed my sleep and ended up over-tired or just not come to lucidity while traveling.

Nyondo: I have difficulty with keeping my body asleep with my mind awake. Could you offer any advice?

LL: You don’t want your mind awake. You want to drop down into the Kunzhi Namshe. You want to release the sense organs. You want your mind asleep. You want it aware that it is dreaming while in the dream, asleep. Next.

Nyondo: A question, does Dream Yoga mantra of Bon help? I’m not quite sure what that is.

LL: Yes. Okay. It’s a more complex method. I’ll get to it, but I’m not teaching that this week; but if you’ve got it go ahead.

Nyondo: Can you simply ask your guru for awake dreaming?

LL: Give it a try. A number of… it might work for some people. If your faith is strong enough, it’ll work.

Nyondo: Next, a number of specific questions that might work or might not. There’s a question about dream herbs, African dream root, African dream seed.

LL: I am less familiar with these. But supposedly there are many incenses which will potentiate lucid dreaming. Salvatore, there is a sage, Salvatore divinitorum which is excellent, which I keep meaning to grow in the garden and have not gotten around to getting a plant. I haven’t played with all of these.

But it is said and known outside of the Tibetan system. I don’t know of anything that grew up on the plateau there. But in other systems there are many things very helpful for this; including a few that shift your awake time into dream-time and end up straddling, but I’m not going to recommend those to you at all. They’re dicey to work with, toxic.

Nyondo: There was a question and I also have this question too, if you’re trying to go to sleep by listening to recordings of voices, there’s quiet stories, or people talking about nothing in particular that some folks find soothing enough to send them to sleep. And how effective is that?

LL: Not for dream yoga. It’s effective in getting to sleep, but I don’t… I think it’s not going to be very effective if you want to be practicing Dream Yoga. Like, I know when I watch a video because I’m having trouble sleeping, one of those Frisian videos, either a soft sound, sometimes it’s visual for me doesn’t work, interferes with Dream Yoga. So that’s my experience. Mine isn’t voices, it’s images that I use for Frisian.

Nyondo: My dreams are often dimly lit which I find threatening and light switches won’t work. Is there a meaning behind this?

LL: Karmic formation probably again. Could be something ate you in the dark in a past life, with lots of nocturnal hunters. Hard to say what causes it, but it’s a particular karmic formation. Repeating dreams are karmic formations, strong ones.

Nyondo: Can you talk a bit more about trekchod how it’s spelled and what it is?

LL: Trekchod is a Tibetan word which means cutting through. It cuts through the karmic formations the pag-chas, the crap that holds you into being a sentient being. It’s a specific method of Dzogchen meditation. Next.

Nyondo: Dreams where you’re being attacked by demons.

LL: So another karmic formation. And I think is this all different types of dreams that’s left? Yes, either that or solutions where you’re going to sleep.

Conclusion

I’ve pretty much given all the solutions I know for going to sleep. Try different combinations of them, not all of them all at once; you’re not trying to injure yourself with a sledgehammer. Which would probably put you to sleep, or at least unconsciousness but not recommended. But try different combinations of them. See if you can get a hold of the Tibetan Medicine. Try some melatonin which I’ve never found it’d be interfering. See what works for you on getting to sleep.

And as many people are asking about different types of dreams, let’s see if I can find…
“the karmic traces are the roots of dreams. They can be entirely exhausted at which point only the pure light of awareness remains. No movie, no story and no dream.”

Your awareness is the light of the projector. It shines through the analogy of the film, which is your karmic traces, creating images and stories, which is the movie. So all the different kinds of dreams that you have are generally about what your karmic traces are.

Lucid dreaming within karmic traces is useful to unravel certain karmas that are stuck, that you’re stuck on your sticking points. Dreams in clarity unravel all karmic formations over time. Certain practices, which, if done in the dream-time are incredibly effective. I’ve heard it said up to nine times more effective than doing them while awake. So I’ll leave you with that idea, some of what this is for what you can get from it. You can also go find the giant orgy that half the Wiccans get pulled off to. Fun but gets boring after a while.

I think we’re complete for today. Let’s let those who are just starting catch up with those who are doing it for a while, to the point of remembering dreams and adjusting your awakeness/sleepiness to a nice level you can work with. Let’s all get there and the next teaching we’re going to look at a lot of techniques for lucidity.

May all beings clear all their karmic traces into the true freedom of enlightenment. Thank you for joining me. As I usually announce at the end of each teaching, I talked about not being able to justify putting four or five or 600 that would keep a Tibetan happily in retreat for a year into a new toy. Should you have a bit extra, 300 will actually keep a Tibetan in basic retreat for a year. Should you like to team up with a Tibetan and merge your practice and the results with a yogi who stays in retreat or with simply someone in need for bodhisattvic reasons, send me an email about that and I will have either I or my assistant, Onalayah, will explain further.

If you enjoyed this teaching and wish to offer any dana for it, there is a PayPal button on my website. Thank you for joining me. What I really want from you is your practice. Practice Dharma by what method depends on where you are standing today. As long as you practice, it works.