MuMuWu's Practice Journal

Been using the tollbooth as well as continuously returning to the present moment in a sensate way (a la eckhart tolle, or "see like an artist"). I really feeling a big shift today (a deepening of what's been occurring over the last few days). I feel super content and light right now. Groovy

Cool stuff!

"Wow, thanks for explaning Boowa's practice by putting it within the maps. I've read his biography a couple of times as inspiration and didn't pick up on those details. It makes a lot of sense. I'm so glad. It can be confusing to hear different practices and not have a sense of how it maps out. Thanks again!

(This is something for me to file away, I'm not close to that level of practice yet.)"

Glad it can be helpful!

I actually just started a blog on this particular practice:

arahattamagga.blogspot.com/

I'm hoping to have some free time this coming weekend so I can start dumping stuff in it. I'm still concerned about the way I should write it, as many have felt threatened by some of my "style" of writing, but whatever. The whole point is that I'm certain it will prove to behelpful to at least one person other than me. And if it helps at least one person, then it would prove to have been worth it!

First of all - Gratitude to Jgroove for bringing up the tollbooth in another thread. It was something I was definitely missing out on in terms of maximizing the effectiveness of direct mode.

By developing a habit of regularly checking in, a sensitivity to broken off "blobs of wax," I am able to catch myself when off on a tangent and then quickly picture the toll booth man and drop whatever it is the mind is fixated on (past/future/speculation). (roughly corresponds to actualist haietmoba/attentiveness)

A blob has broken off! I use the sunspot at this point by seeing the body as a whole and locating the points of tension that likely triggered it. Now that I am aware of them, I have plugged the leakages. The body is being seen as a whole and the lava lamp is cooling off.

I am back in the present moment and things are wonderful again. I tune into the senses. Ahh.... This can last a very brief time, at which point if I am still being attentive I have the opportunity to repeat the above process (tollbooth-mostly useful when a piece has broken off - there's an actual mind loop proliferating itself, sunspot/lava lamp, seeing as an artist).

The toll booth is key!

Great! And thanks to you, sir, for your suggestion that I tune in to granularity. I'm still working on this and will report on it at some point soon...

"There are faster and slower vibrations that may show up, some very fast (maybe up to forty times per second) and some very slow (that are actually made up of faster vibrations), but let's just say that one to ten times per second can sometimes be a useful guideline in the beginning. Once you get the hang of it, the faster and slower vibrations are no big deal. Alternately, depending on how you practice, conceiving of this as like a shower of raindrops, a pointillist painting in motion, or 3D TV snow might help. Reality is obviously quite rich and complex, and thus the frequencies of the pulses of reality can be somewhat chaotic, but they actually tend to be more regular than you might expect. Also, there are not really any 'magic frequencies.' Whatever frequency or pulse or whatever you are experiencing at that moment is the truth of that moment! However, in the beginning you should go for faster vibrations over slower ones and then try for wider ones over those that are narrower. "

- dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wi...=MCTB%20Impermanence

Makes sense. At one point there was a very distinctly different--faster and seemingly subtler--frequency of vibrations that just kind of came out of nowhere in a flash. I couldn't quite tune into it perfectly; seemed to be resonating with the grosser, slower frequency.
Interesting that the fastest way for me to find vibrations isn't samatha of the visual field--it's just straight up noting, once-per-second. That seems to reveal vibrations somewhere without a huge amount of effort or time at all. Maybe the result of buliding the scaffolding over all these months. Now, to bring all of this to bear and try to get past whatever it is that is still keeping SE at bay...

Right, the visual field thing was just a pointer to say - see how there's graininess and moving particles there - locate that in your body as well, and then try and take it deeper and deeper and broader. Sort of a tuning into the dis continuousness inherent in the sensory experience.

That's clear. I'm doing a full-day retreat next week and should have a good bit of sitting time this weekend. I'll keep working with it. Thanks again!

Had a nap yesterday and woke up around 10. Decided that I would attempt lucid dreaming later that night (having a nap earlier and then going to sleep in the night seems to be a factor in having them for me.)

Before sleep, listened to a Monroe institute recording, seemed to be deep in fourth jhana by the end, with a rapidly strobing quality to the mind. As I drifted off to sleep, half formed pieces of dreams would come into view.

Eventually found myself in a dream and was able to play with it and experiment somewhat. Initially movement was difficult and the body felt heavy. I was soon able to exercise more and more freedom and played around with throwing objects etc. Eventually woke up and was able to close my eyes and push myself into another dream.

The second dream was clearer and more vivid. I was in my home town. It was a beautiful clear night. I ran down a steep hill and jumped and was able to take off. One thing that seemed odd was that the stars and house lights had a strange flickering quality to them. A crow took off from the ground and flew next to me. Again, I felt somewhat heavy but was able to control my movement in the air by making swimming motions. If felt a lot like swimming.

I soon woke up, quite amazed at the success I had.

I was unable to replicate it again - except for the initial series of half formed dreams.

You're probably familiar with the book "Exploring the world of lucid dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge, right? Do you have any success with increasing the number of reality checks during the day?

I haven't read it and I haven't done reality checks.



Also, no success last night. I just feel tired

I'm wondering if it was related to an A&P part of a cycle.

Very cool. B. Alan Wallace offers some good lucid dreaming exercises in "The Attention Revolution." (I believe he got these from LaBerge.)

There's a few things you can do to improve your chances of lucid dreaming actually, one of them is keeping a dream diary, even if it's just fragments of it as it will always trigger more recall later in the day when you read over it. Another trick is using resolutions to identify when you become lucid within the dream, this can be surprisingly effective.

Yeah guys, I'm really interested right now in what happens if you combine an approach of progressive relaxation with some sort of mindfulness exercise. This seems to be key to success along with intention and playing around with sleep cycles (most times it's happened for me have been on days where I've slept, woke up and then slept again).

FYI: About a decade ago (yeah i know ) I was very much into lucid dreaming. LaBerge's book helped a lot. I think it's safe to say it became some kind of obsession. At the peak I was writing 12 dreams per night in my dream journal (I woke up after every dream), had lots of false awakenings and some lucid dreams now and then. When I got tinnitus like symptoms and kept waking up after each dream, I knew it was time to stop.
Now that I meditate, I get spontaneous lucid dreams now and then.

So what did you do other than journal to try and remember your dreams and wake from them(simple reality checking throughout the day?)

Try to remain conscious as you fall asleep. That always works for me. Better if you are very tired.

also try taking a nap in the middle of the day. much easier to lucid dream in naps, i think. stay conscious as you fall asleep - it's possible to stay conscious from waking, to falling asleep, to being asleep (so you're plopped right into a lucid dream), stay lucid the whole time, and stay conscious as you wake up. very interesting to notice the boundary between sleeping and waking up. i did it two times i think, fun stuff. even though the nap was ~20 minutes it felt like an hour or two.

"So what did you do other than journal to try and remember your dreams and wake from them(simple reality checking throughout the day?)"

Yeah mainly reality checking things like watches and light switches. They usually act weird in dreams.

I'm with David on that one, something totally normal and everyday is always good. Hands are another one, they always end up doing all sorts of mad sh*t when you're lucid dreaming!

I was really into lucid dreaming and astral projection, when I first got interested in all things spiritual. Didnt really have much luck with either though. However I really enjoyed Carlos Castanedas Book the Art of Dreaming. He recommended regularly looking at your hand and doing a reality check (eventually it will be in a dream)

I had a little bit of success with this. Normally if I have a bad dream, really bad it eventually crosses my mind this might be a dream....which is great! I then fly off like superman, usually only to get re-embedded in it a few moments later.

I tried the staying awake, throught the hyponogogic phase as well, but never made it thorugh that way. Ken Wilber has this thing where he reamins concious all the way down to deepest sleep and dwells in a state of pure conciousness!.......sounds great! = )

I played around with this a couple of years ago, but can't say I got very far. Lucid dreams are fun though. Keeping a dream journal was helpful... I'd keep it by my bed and write (in 1st person present-tense) without getting out of bed. I had the most success after waking up and going back to sleep. Reality checks didn't always work for me. I remember I noticed a weird thing with clocks once in a dream... it was light out but the clock said 4 AM or something. I just thought it was weird and didn't gain lucidity.
I think the most conducive thing to having lucid dreams for me was to just be obsessed with it. Think about it, read about it, etc before bed.

aye just to corroborate what others are saying: if you ever think you're in a dream, look at your hands. they will NOT be normal. if you're still unsure, look again! easiest way to go from a hunch to full lucid.

what you can also do is look at a clock, then look away, then look back. it'll never show the same numbers twice.

"I'm with David on that one, something totally normal and everyday is always good. Hands are another one, they always end up doing all sorts of mad sh*t when you're lucid dreaming!"

Yep, Carlos Castaneda style!