Judy Tart:
I've read Tenzin Wangyal's book and also attended several weekend workshops he has given on Tibetan dream yoga. Most of my practical knowledge of lucid dreams has come from Stephen LaBerge, who's written several very good books on the subject and gives workshops on his techniques - I've used his Nova Dreamer, which flashes a red light when you are in REM sleep to help you become aware that you're dreaming, and also gotten a lot of information from people who have very frequent lucid dreams, who have spoken and given workshops at the International Association for the Study of Dreams. In spite of a lot of effort devoted to this study, my results have been rather limited, and I haven't managed to accomplish as much as I've wanted to. I find that the very recognition that I have become conscious in a dream tends to wake me up unless I am quite careful. The quality of consciousness is very clear, compared to ordinary dreams, and the whole surrounding scene tends to become rather numinous. I am continually amazed by the fact that, although I know quite clearly that this is only a dream, a product of my mind, it does not vanish when I recognize that - it has some sense of solidity, even though I may find that walls are made of some kind of styrofoam-like material, or that I can walk through them, or fly, etc.
I wonder if the sense of clarity upon "awakening" in a dream is in any way analogous to what a similar "awakening" in so-called real life would be. I have yet to find out.
The few times I've tried to induce lucid dreaming, it did not work, but I wasn't very persistent. However when I was doing fairly intense meditation practice (Tibetan lineage preliminaries) I found that the more I practiced, the more likely I was to have lucid dreams even without trying. Becoming lucid usually didn't wake me - though it came close at times. As you say, the dream world would not vanish, but it was more brilliant and transparent - luminous and with a great sense of significance. Then I would usually drift back into non-lucid dreaming.
I came to the conclusion after awhile that awakening must be very much like this - that, at least in the early stages, nothing vanishes - just becomes less compelling in its mundane aspect and at the same time, more brilliant and meaningful - or at least something is meaningful.
Yesterday I was reading in a Tibetan text that said that when you reach the higher levels of enlightenment, awareness waking and dreaming is almost the same. Once in a discussion of what dreams are, one of my fellow students asked our teacher what his dreams were like. He said being awake was like being in one room, and dreaming, being in the next room - then he added, "But for me there's no wall."
I experienced the 'no-wall' situation once in a very different way. I was staying at home, but in a building separate from the main house. It was mid-winter, very cold, and there was a storm with high winds. The wind was blowing down the chimney and resulted in fumes accumulating. The next time the furnace tried to fire itself up, there was a big explosion. I was sound asleep at the time, but woke instantly - I was completely aware of hearing the explosion - even though it had happened when I was asleep. But then I was wide awake with a sense of complete continuity back into my previous sleeping state and the experience of hearing the explosion. No wall, as it were. I knew exactly what the explosion was and what I needed to do about it.
When I had time to think about it later, I was really baffled by the experience. It was very clear - that the sound had occurred when I was asleep, and then I was awake, with no transition whatsoever. My conclusion now is that the majority of our 'experience' is constructed - and a lot of our energy goes into maintaining the whole edifice of ordinary 'consciousness' - but it is just constructs and not reality. There are many ways to de-construct this edifice - physical and mental stress are quite effective, and in fact, this is also what meditation does, hopefully in a somewhat more controlled way.
Susan