Dream Yoga

states of consciousness

state of consciousness

simile for it

   

chos-n~id bar-do ~ dreamless sleep (p. 45)

p. 46 "the state of natural light"

"the mother light"

p. 47 "the state of self-perfectedness"

"son knowledge"

"the meeting between the son light and the mother light" {Qayin copulateth with his mother H.awwah}

p. 48 "fullness" {"pleroma" -- impraegnated by Qayin, H.awwah giveth birth to Hebel (Manichaean -- GB, p. 577)}

   

srid-pa bar-do ~ dreaming (p. 48)

p. 49 "a karmic dream of bhakshas. ... if there is any empty bottle which once contained perfume, you can still smell the trace of perfume."

{this same simile is used by Gnostics!}

p. 50 "dreams of clarity": "obtain advice and predictions for the future because there are secondary causes for future events."

If so, this is vouchsafed by deities coming from the future (by moving backwards through time) -- the causes of events reside in our future = those deities' past.

p. 56 "On occasion, a fearful nightmare may arise."

The nightmare is a warning against the hideous evil that Buddhism (and Christianity) is [advising people to abandon their spouse and their children, and to turn instead to homosexuality].

p. 58 "As soon as a dream arises, instantly be aware that it is "unreal" (sha-dro)."

To regard the divine world of dreams in this manner, is to hurl one's self instantly into damnation.

p. 59 "dreams ... vanish completely. ... At this point, dreams end."

This is because one hath ostracized one's self from the divine company of the deities.

GB = Barnstone & Meyer: The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala, Boston, 2003.

generally accordant comments

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p. 27 "Aristotle used to counter Heraclitus who believed in precognitive dreaming"

Aristoteles was being deliberately (as usual!) misleading.

p. 33, n. 8 "Freud knew about lucid dream experience. See ... The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ... Vol. 15, p. 222. ... This ... is summarized ... in Lucidity Letter, 9 (2) 1990, Edmonton, Alberta."

It did little good merely to be aware of this.

p. 34, n. 10 "Within the Tantric system of Anu Yoga, ... "lung" or internal airs are said to circulate through internal channels or meridians called "tsa". ... and ... may be purified and caused to circulate along specific internal paths. The methods for achieving these ends ... are called Yantra Yoga, or Tsa Lung."

This Yantra Yoga would be similar to finding one's way through the labyrinth in Hellenic, or subterranean caverns in the Kemetian & Zulu, myths.

p. 75 "... ancient Bonpo tradition. That night I had a dream. There was a small boy dressed in blue. I asked him who he was, and he replied that his name was Puel. Puel was a famous Bonpo deity, ... to accomplish divination through astrology. I said, "If you are really Puel, then explain to me about the functions of the elements of individuals ...""

This Blue Boy (boy clad in blue) is a prominent deity of Daoism. [It might seem somewhat rude to demand of a deity in a dream that the deity "prove" itself, but this may be some carry-over habit from practice of formal debates -- which is a good reason not to debate!]

Thus was acquired a knowledge of Namkha, consisting of (p. 86, n. 10) colored string wrapped around, in a genethliac-astrology pattern, 2 pieces of wood.

Similar string string-enwrapped small sticks are known to Hoodoo (and the like).

p. 77 Instructed by a disembodied voice, there appeared visibly in the dream, "some writing, ... a text ... appeared to occupy all of space."

"... "books soaring into heaven ... celestial books" which suddenly appeared in heaven made up of characters ten feet square" (TM, p. 22), source of the light of the 3 Luminaries (ibid., p. 23).

"I ... awoke. The words were still there even with my eyes open. It wasn't a dream. I saw them for a short time, and then they disappeared. ... I continued to look into the sky."

This text which is visible above (as if on the ceiling) upon awakening is characteristic of "sleep paralysis".

p. 79 Dream of being handed, by a white-serpent-bodied being, a peacock-feathers-rimmed round mirror, with 12 rainbowed-rimmed smaller mirrors.

Mirrors are unusual in dreams.

pp. 79-80 In same dream, being handed, by a dark-red one-eyed female being, a mala (necklace) of rubies;

cf. the female, Medousa, seen in a mirror by Perseus, alfter he had visited the one-eye female Graiai.

and also a transparent blue swastika.

 

TM = Isabelle Robinet: Taoist Meditation. State U of NY Pr, 1993.

discovery of falsehoods: generally discordant comments

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p. 39 Unpleasant supposedly "karmic" dreams: supposedly caused by some past action no longer (perhaps) even a part of that person's characteristic behavior -- let alone having anything to do with personal consistency nor truthfulness!

Actually, dreams are the most wished-for resolutions of personal life-situations; but if a person is particularly hypocritical, an unpleasant dream may come as a warning for what is in store for that person in a future life, if ways are not amended promptly.

p. 40 "One hundred or even a hundred thousand lives can be remembered in a dream."

Once a life is finished, there would be no point in remembering it; those who remember such are being mocked by memory-deities. What might be worthwhile would be to remember one's encounters with deities [between lives].

p. 41 "The dream condition is unreal."

Actually, the dream-world is the divine world; it is thus much more real than the physical world which it createth.

p. 59 "while dreaming and then afterwards, do not "clarify" what is "subject" from what is "object" -- that is, do not consider which of the images that appear are real." {This a a real distortion of terms, for real vs. unreal are quite different maters from subject (active) vs. object (passive).}

This advice is in gross contradiction to, e.g., the Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama, where cares are taken to note what the realities of the deities envisaged are.

"upon sleeping you should try to visualize a very tiny Vajrayogini at the center of your body. We call this tiny being jn~anasattva".

How is this goddess to be esteemed "unreal" without offending her? [Females, especially, become insulted very easily.]

Namkhai Norbu (ed. by Michael Katz): Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Snow Lion Publ., Ithaca, 1992.

"when someone falls asleep and is dreaming, he may hear many accounts of the early formation of the cosmos and the evolution of human and nonhuman life forms. He may witness many teachers and masters propounding the Dharma, see the images of numerous temples and reliquaries, and observe an abundance of writings. Many will appear to report that the images of those temples and reliquaries were constructed by certain patrons, artists, and smiths, and that those writings were composed by specific teachers."

Vajra Heart Tantra 102, p. 66 on the translation – on http://www.american-buddha.com at