(Part 2) Best products from r/LucidDreaming

Hey! Sure, I'll try to give some pointers on the matter :) Right now I can't think of any other resources than what's most likely been posted here, meaning the ADA guide over on Dreamviews. That's my reference point/guide when it comes to expanding mindfulness in everyday life.

First of all, from what you write you seem to be on the good way of becoming mindful throughout the day - take some credit for that! I'm curious how you were approaching ADA before? With respect to that, if your subjective experience of mindfulness doesn't correspond entirely to a book or someone's description then it doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong.

I can recommend the book I mentioned earlier: Eric Harrison - The foundations of mindfulness. I haven't read anything else by that author but at least in that book he has a down to earth, approachable way of writing and explaining meditation.

One of the main take aways from the book was that meditation and mindfulness can mean differerent things depending from which Buddhist tradition you are looking at it. The most widespread conception of meditation nowadays comes from Tibbetan "Mahayana" Buddhism which advocates a non-judgemental approach to life and events. Harrison advocates the Burmese "Theravada" interpretation of Buddhism which, according to him, is a closer interpretation of the original texts and is more actionable and applicable to improvement of one's self-awareness and improvement.

Now I regard mindfulness as an activity - something that you actively will and then move on to do. Before I thought of mindfulness as a state of mind, as being relaxed and empty of thoughts. It is noticing several aspects of your self throughout the day.

Anyhow, in the Theravada tradition both meditation and minfulness are considered as active practices of attention geared towards:

• Mindfulness of your body: which you can do by paying attention to your breath and bodily sensations. He suggests starting out with seated meditation but then slowly training yourself to meditate while lying down, standing and walking as to expand the opportunities when you can meditate.
  
  
• Mindfulness of your emotions: which you can do by paying attention of how you feel regarding certain things, actions, events. Harrison writes that we attribute either pleasant or unpleasant emotions to things throughout the day. Noticing when we attribute pleasant and unpleasant emotional value to things helps you gain some distance from the object and increase your awareness of both its impact on yourself and your reaction to it.
  
  I am currently processing the following two and they do blur into each other at times but I'll give short quotes from Harrison, since he is the author of the book.
  
  
• Mindfulness of states of mind:
  
  > How does a monk contemplate his states of mind? He recognises the mind that is caught in desire and the mind free of desire. He recognises the mind that is caught in anger and the mind free of anger. He recgonises the mind that is caught in delusion and the mind free of delusion.
  
  
• Mindfulness of thought:
  
  > How does a monk live fully conscious and in control of his thoughts? He contemplates the five aggregate parts that make up his sense of self. He understands how the body, perceptions, feelings, action tendencies and consciousness arise and pass away.
  
  Hope I answered at least some of your question! And again, this is only my beginner interpretation of a pretty humongous subject, if there are others more adept in mindfulness I would welcome their correction!
  

My first rule when considering if I should take someone's lucid dreaming advice seriously, I take into account their approach to teaching. I've been following how to lucid for a while. His channel was bigger than mine, but still pretty modest when I found him. His channel exploded because he got lucky enough to have a front page reddit post, in which he called himself an expert. That's strike one. There are no lucid dreaming experts and, even if there are, they certainly know enough not to call themselves experts. The most knowledgeable people I know on this topic are Daniel Love and Geo from lucidsource.net. Their vast knowledge is far greater than how to lucid's and they'll be the first to tell you that there are no experts.

On his approach, you'll notice that he has a lot of videos aimed at how to lucid dream "fast/easy/tonight". This is a clear sign that he's doing his best to reach a specific audience. That audience doesn't really want to learn how to lucid dream, or rather they don't want to put in any effort. Plenty of people are interested in it, but since so many people search for the easy way, they get directed to people like this who want to cash in on people's desire to lucid dream while not providing them with anything worthwhile to that pursuit. It's about views and quick sells of useless information, rather than actually building people's knowledge about the topic. Strike two.

This is highly evidenced in strike three, if you look at his books on amazon, you'll find "100 things to do in lucid dreams". What does this really add to the community? Literally anyone who wanted to make a book like that could do so without any lucid dreaming know how. Any one of us could think of 100 things to do in lucid dreams every day and no one would be more skilled for it. My favorite is to scroll down to the reviews of that book and look at the very first review. Submitted by the very personal "Amazon Customer" (ah, yes, I know him well, great guy). Where they write:

"The author is an expert in the field of lucid dreaming and this book is full of interesting things to do! Once you can lucid dream, you don't want to waste time not knowing what to do, do you? This book solves that problem"

I'm pretty sure he submitted this review himself. Again, because the only person calling how to lucid an expert is how to lucid.

I don't know him personally and have no animosity toward him. I simply find his approach to be more out of a business perspective than for actually giving a damn about what you're filling people's heads with on this topic. There are far worse people talking about it, but he certainly isn't helping. My advice is to look for other people who don't just spew fourth quick fixes that really don't do anything.

> I am a Vaisnava Brahmin myself, everyone in my family is religious, except they don't really know what our religion talks about.

I can identify with this to some extent. My wife's family is Brahmin Hindu (albeit more followers of Ganesh) and despite having a large shrine, gathering for pujas and bhajans, and turning their noses up on "lower" castes, they are largely ignorant of the lessons and content of the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. I've noticed that in today's world - at least among the diaspora Indian population in the U.S. - "Hinduism" is often more of a cultural identity, tradition, and way to unite a community for events. Many know a few folkloric tales, some procedures for ceremonies, basic conceptual framework of the religion - but few actually walk the path, few practice meditation, few have studied the Upanishads or Gita and appreciated the messages of mysticism contained therein. This is even more true for second generation Indian-Americans. That said, the same could be said for almost any religious group; you can't tell me that every Methodist Protestant can recite the book of Luke or Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

>I wish I could actually understand sanskrit(the language the scripts are written) so I could have my own perception of the scripts rather than translations.

I recommend these translations of Sankaracharya's 6th-7th century commentary of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads. These do a rough breakdown of the words, gives an idea of how the Sanskrit breaks down, and gives a pretty true representation of one of the oldest translations from Sanskrit into vernacular tongues.

If interested, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda are great as well. They give the original the Sanskrit, the direct transliteration, a translation into coherent English, and then a commentary. However, this book is more an instruction manual on yoga practice (unitive and meditative exercises and broader lifestyle, not American stretch class); though still a great read for someone looking for a practical approach to mysticism.

Take this with a grain of salt, as I neither LD nor meditate (despite wanting to do both =/). I'd try meditation again. Awareness is a fundamental part of lucid dreaming, right? You want to be aware enough in your life that when you're asleep, that same awareness makes you notice something off and go "hey! that's not like in real life!" hence, All-Day Awareness. Popular technique and anecdotally very effective. Plus better awareness should make your dreams more vivid, or let you experience them more vividly. Anyway. This is where meditation comes in. So there's this guy, Culadasa, who is both a neuroscientist and meditation guru (? I'm not sure of the proper title). He wrote this book. It's a very in-depth guide to meditation, laid out in clearly delineated stages. Really well-reviewed and extremely practical, which I appreciate. In the very beginning of the book, he defines mindfulness as the right balance between attention and (peripheral) awareness, with the modern mind severely lacking awareness. Meditation helps train the mind to find and maintain that balance, to bring awareness up. Better awareness = better chances of lucidity, hopefully (and there's a bunch of anecdotal evidence behind it, even just on this sub I'm sure). That's of course not even mentioning the myriad other benefits, purported and proven. So to sum up, I would encourage you to try meditation again.

edit: also, speaking of relaxation, someone posted this in here the other day. have you tried that? the results look promising, 96% success rate after six weeks of practice (although I dearly wish they'd included a sample size).

Personally I would take the natural route to try to learn lucid dreaming that is, without buying things, however if you insist I think I can help.

Free

Dreamviews - Is a great place to learn about Lucid Dreaming, with tutorials, help from members, etc.

Giz Edwards - Giz posts a lot about lucid dreaming, and caters to beginners.

Binaural Beats for inducing Lucid dreams - Binaural Beats are the process of playing two brainwave frequencies in each ear in order to alter consciousness, headphones are required.

World Of Lucid Dreaming - This site helped me a lot when I was a beginner, it is quite easy to understand, and helpful.

Courses that cost money

Lucidology - Lucidology is a course that costs money, but seems to be rather effective.

Actual Supplements

Lucid Dreaming Pills - Lastly, if you are looking for some pills to take, these are said to have good effects.

Aromatherapy for Lucid Dreams - This is said to induce lucid dreams using aromatherapy.

Dream Herb This is the infamous Calea-Zacatechichi, the dream herb.


I hope this helps! And the best of luck to you.

I am currently lapsed in my dream practice. I have found it to be pretty difficult, but immensely rewarding.

Another source of good teachings that mix modern lucid dreaming techniques with Tibetan dream yoga are Charlie Morley’s excellent books. He was authorized to tech dream yoga by Lama Yeshe, a Karma Kagyu lineage holder. In particular, I would recommend “Dreams of Awakening” Dreams of Awakening

Dream practice is super rewarding...and FUN! I need to get back to it!

Maybe look up some info on video-game design and augmented reality. It's all created by human programmers (ignoring AI in recent years), and if someone else can create an entire virtual world from scratch, so you can you! Even better, you don't have to "reinvent the wheel" when it comes to dreams. You can even cut out the death-march of constantly trying to improve graphics software/hardware (unless you really want to spend a few months trying to get rain wetness to "look right") and skip straight to the cool stuff.

I'd recommend starting with something easy and objective, like a Diegetic Interface rather than trying for something subjective which only you can see. Do you have a favorite interface from a video-game that you like? You can image it appearing on a clear piece of glass in front of you. Later on you can try [wearing] the piece of glass and have yourself a old fashioned HUD. Mess around with different ways to display information and maybe even go for a book on interface design like About Face or The Joy of UX.

edit: clarity

I love what notacop said but to answer your question, this book is a great resource:


https://www.amazon.com/1000-Dreams-Discover-Meanings-Symbols/dp/1780280408


After the brunt of the book I stopped reading because I'm not a fan of universal symbolism, like "a frog means that prosperity is in your future". When maybe a frog FOR ME symbolizes my childhood, because there was one time when I was 7 and me and my best friend bonded over playing with a frog. Totally made that up but hopefully you got the picture. Most of the book listed above will help you get more in tune with what kind of dreamer you are, the eb and flow of your dreams, and how it could possibly pertain to your waking life. The rest I think is added because they felt they needed to include it.

This is a very good video introduction to Stoicism.

The main ancient Stoic books that have survived are Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, Epictetus's Discourses and Enchiridion, which is basically a summary of the Discourses, and Seneca's Letters to Lucilius and Essays. All these editions are relatively new translations and, in Seneca's case, abridged, but they will give you an idea of what Stoicism is about. I suggest you first read the Enchiridion (it is no longer than 40 pages) and then the Meditations (around 150-200 pages), and then dig deeper if you get interested.

There are other ancient sources, and quite a lot of modern work is being done currently, but those are the ones I suggest you begin with.

Then there are very active modern Stoic communities, like /r/Stoicism, the Facebook group, and NewStoa, with its College of Stoic Philosophers, that lets you take a very good four month long course by email.

The great thing about Stoicism as a way of life is that it has neither the blind dogmatism of organized religion nor the ardent skepticism of atheism. It puts the soul back in the universe, in a way, and, on the personal level, empowers you to take responsibility for your actions and to take it easy with what you cannot control.

Hey, /u/OsakaWilson! Hope you are well.

The best approach you can find toward the subject is Carl Jung's writings. I am almost positive. It is analytical psychology, so it is a bit more of a stretch with the mind, but you will find what you are looking for, I bet. His works on dreams are compiled and fairly easy to find: Dreams by Carl Jung. I will dig up what I can on nightmares for you. He analyzed dreams of his patients and helped work them through it. Nightmares are discussed, but I'm not sure there's a step-by-step guide... rather a good method that he used to help rid others that you could learn from.

I'm a novice too, but the idea of WBTB is that you catch your big REM cycles at the end of your night of sleep. Also, waking up in the middle of the night makes it a lot easier to slide back into a sleep state with some conscious awareness.

So the idea is that you set an alarm in the middle of the night (anywhere from 3-6 hours after you fall asleep, I've heard mixed reports here) and when it goes off, deactivate it, and then try the WILD!

Your body will be eager to go back to sleep, because it was interrupted. This will put you in a good relaxed state, and shouldn't take you 5 hours :)

Also, people on here have mixed results with supplementation, but valerian root is a natural herb that has been used for centuries to relax and fall asleep more quickly. If you're the sort of person who has a lot of thoughts while trying to fall asleep, this might suit you. Keep at it!

I just found out this subreddit existed today. Your nice ad drew me here. I have a treasure trove for those who seriously want to learn how to travel in the astral plane. However, I must say that there is a doctrine attached to this knowledge. I know reddit is a very secular place in which dogma is often questioned subjectively. I like the site for this and I fully endorse the scientific method as well. However, there is no real benefit to understanding techniques on how to 'lucid dream' if it doesn't involve a deeper understanding of our ego, our consciousness and ourselves. More often than not, many who devote much time to develop the skills to leave the physical body and retain consciousness will find themselves stuck; with no progress or control over the experience. This is because they have not prepared their higher vehicles properly. The development of the higher vehicles depends fully on spiritual growth. I am talking about Gnosis.

The Wiccans have some simple methods which are successful, however I have found from my own experience that reading, understanding and practicing the work of G.I Gurdjieff, P.D Ouspensky, Samael Aun Weor, Mario Roso de Luna and Arnold Krumm-Heller, you can get a much more concise, detailed and effective method in practice. It is not easy, since it is quite a LOT to take in, but it works. It really does.

I have to go and run some errands, but will be back later on to post more information for those who might be interested. If there is a good place to start: read this book, and proceed from there. Djinnestan is not far away for those who want to seek the truth.

I just bought a silk sleep mask one week ago, and I don't think it can help to make dreams more vivid but it can block light well to help me sleep longer time, BTW, I can't feel anything on my face.

https://www.amazon.com/Kora-Washable-Hypoallergenic-Blindfold-Adjustable/dp/B07RYHS6SJ/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=sleep+mask+organic&qid=1574149742&sr=8-4

Alright, I read through the sections on supplements and am now looking at these two. Any opinions?

http://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Alpha-Veg-Capsules-60-Count/dp/B001RYKA3U

and

http://smile.amazon.com/Supplement-Instructional-E-Handbook-Huperzine-Melatonin/dp/B005EV7DJQ/