Lucid dreamless sleep

Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/26/19 8:16 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Dustin 12/26/19 10:53 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/26/19 11:54 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Not two, not one 12/26/19 1:57 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/26/19 2:17 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Not two, not one 12/26/19 3:52 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/26/19 11:57 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 12/28/19 10:03 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 2:28 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 12/29/19 3:31 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 5:57 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep svmonk 12/26/19 7:52 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/27/19 12:02 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Noah D 12/26/19 11:29 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/27/19 12:20 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Noah D 12/28/19 4:33 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 2:40 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/27/19 1:03 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Not two, not one 12/28/19 11:35 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 2:36 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 7:18 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/17/20 3:35 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/31/19 1:32 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/13/20 6:03 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 5:40 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 9:45 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 9:51 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/17/20 3:33 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 10:57 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/20 1:42 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/16/20 11:43 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 9:20 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 11:22 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 1:14 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 1:45 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 1:51 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 2:05 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/18/20 9:06 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/18/20 1:06 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Siavash ' 2/18/20 2:07 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/18/20 4:05 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/19/20 6:55 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Siavash ' 2/19/20 7:41 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/23/20 7:06 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/23/20 7:13 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/23/20 7:41 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/17/20 4:02 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 5:03 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 5:35 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 9:57 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 10:21 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 10:47 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 11:06 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 11:06 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/15/20 11:13 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 11:14 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 11:36 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Chris M 2/15/20 11:51 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 12:02 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 11:59 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 12:49 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 1:11 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep A. Dietrich Ringle 3/2/20 12:06 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/15/20 1:08 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 1:41 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/16/20 12:04 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/20 12:47 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/16/20 2:32 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/20 3:19 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 9:32 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 11:09 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 1:17 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 1:47 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/19/20 2:41 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/18/20 8:41 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/20 10:14 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/19/20 12:22 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep hae1en 2/20/20 7:46 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/20 3:50 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep neko 2/17/20 9:23 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/20 11:13 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Romeo Stevens 12/27/19 2:58 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep George S 12/28/19 6:29 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 12/29/19 2:44 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/28/20 11:39 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/20 9:34 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/20 6:11 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep A. Dietrich Ringle 2/28/20 3:18 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/28/20 3:43 PM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep A. Dietrich Ringle 2/29/20 9:00 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/29/20 10:17 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep A. Dietrich Ringle 3/2/20 8:53 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep A. Dietrich Ringle 3/2/20 10:08 AM
RE: Lucid dreamless sleep Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/2/20 5:04 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 8:16 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 8:16 AM

Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I'd be most grateful if someone could tell me the point of lucid dreamless sleep. I have heard that there are people who work hard to get there, so I suspect there is something one could do with it other than listening to and feeling one's body snoring for 40 minutes or so. I never really intended to learn to stay aware while in deep sleep. It just happens now and then, when I fall asleep during meditation. I get that there's some insight to it. I mean, obviously I'm asleep, and yet there's awareness. There are no narratives going on, and that takes away a lot of the separation. Is there something more to it? Am I missing something?
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Dustin, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 10:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 10:53 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I got some of the same stuff when going through dissolution last week but never thought to ask questions about insights. I just never thought of anything else to do besides rest into it instead of getting mad about falling asleep during practice or just getting up and stopping practice. I am interested to see your questions answered.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 1:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 1:57 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I'd be most grateful if someone could tell me the point of lucid dreamless sleep. I have heard that there are people who work hard to get there, so I suspect there is something one could do with it other than listening to and feeling one's body snoring for 40 minutes or so. I never really intended to learn to stay aware while in deep sleep. It just happens now and then, when I fall asleep during meditation. I get that there's some insight to it. I mean, obviously I'm asleep, and yet there's awareness. There are no narratives going on, and that takes away a lot of the separation. Is there something more to it? Am I missing something?

it allows you to maintain mindfulnes while asleep, thereby extending the period of meditation, and associated purification, significantly.

Just my opinion.

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 2:17 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 2:17 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Is there a way to be mindful about something more than snoring and the occasional purring cat on my chest? How do I make the best of the opportunity?
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 3:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 3:52 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Try mindfulness of mild piti throughout the body.
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svmonk, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 7:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 7:50 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Linda,

Technically in Tibetan practice, the conscious experience of deep, dreamless sleep is sleep yoga. Conscious or lucid dreaming is dream yoga. Sleep and dream yoga are one of the 6 Yogas of Naropa. Andrew Holecek has an excellent book on it 'Dream Yoga' here: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Yoga-Illuminating-Through-Dreaming/dp/1622034597/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=tibetan+dream+yoga&qid=1577410092&sr=8-2.

I've read through the book twice, taken a course online with Andrew and an in person course with Stephen LaBerge, a Stanford psychologist who was the first Western scientist to study lucid dreaming but, basically, I suck at lucid dreaming. Every time I get lucid, I either wake up or fall back into nonconscious dreaming because I want to see how the story plays out. I've been trying it for years and gotten nowhere. My Mahamudra teacher says not to worry, don't make it one more thing to beat yourself up about, so I don't. Sleep yoga, remaining conscious during dreamless sleep, is supposed to be more difficult.
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Noah D, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:29 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:29 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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It's considered a gateway to the deepest layer of clear light mind, in Tibetan Buddhism (other gates include sneezing, dying and orgasm).  These are points when consciousness is not covered over by other things.  According to that doctrine, there are subtle obstructions to attaining omniscience & these can only be overcome by connecting & sustaining with this level of mind.  This is considered by TB to be more than arahantship, which involves overcoming emotional obscurations; that can be accomplished through more shallow levels of mind.

Of course none of this is relevant if someone doesn't believe in the traditional models - i.e. 'emotional perfection models' or 'powers models' of MCTB.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:54 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:54 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Resting into it is basically what I do too, and I think it's wise not to beat oneself up for what is, but I was curious to see if there's more to it. It seems like we have an opportunity for something at least. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/26/19 11:57 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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curious:
Try mindfulness of mild piti throughout the body.


Will do. Thanks! I have done some of that already, but I can probably develop that. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 12:02 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 12:02 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
svmonk:
Hi Linda,

Technically in Tibetan practice, the conscious experience of deep, dreamless sleep is sleep yoga. Conscious or lucid dreaming is dream yoga. Sleep and dream yoga are one of the 6 Yogas of Naropa. Andrew Holecek has an excellent book on it 'Dream Yoga' here: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Yoga-Illuminating-Through-Dreaming/dp/1622034597/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=tibetan+dream+yoga&qid=1577410092&sr=8-2.

I've read through the book twice, taken a course online with Andrew and an in person course with Stephen LaBerge, a Stanford psychologist who was the first Western scientist to study lucid dreaming but, basically, I suck at lucid dreaming. Every time I get lucid, I either wake up or fall back into nonconscious dreaming because I want to see how the story plays out. I've been trying it for years and gotten nowhere. My Mahamudra teacher says not to worry, don't make it one more thing to beat yourself up about, so I don't. Sleep yoga, remaining conscious during dreamless sleep, is supposed to be more difficult.
Great, thankyou! I have had a few lucid dreams, but like you I tend to be interested in how the story plays out. I haven't been trying, though, as I didn't know what to do with it anyway. I get into the lucid dreamless sleep more often for some reason. Maybe it is because I so often meditate in a reclining position that is very restful for the body. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 12:20 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 12:20 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Noah D:
It's considered a gateway to the deepest layer of clear light mind, in Tibetan Buddhism (other gates include sneezing, dying and orgasm).  These are points when consciousness is not covered over by other things.  According to that doctrine, there are subtle obstructions to attaining omniscience & these can only be overcome by connecting & sustaining with this level of mind.  This is considered by TB to be more than arahantship, which involves overcoming emotional obscurations; that can be accomplished through more shallow levels of mind.

Of course none of this is relevant if someone doesn't believe in the traditional models - i.e. 'emotional perfection models' or 'powers models' of MCTB.  
Heh, I'm certainly nowhere near arahantship, let alone beyond it, and I don't believe in those models. It seems like it could still be an opportunity for something, though, so I may as well try to develop it. Thanks! I had to look up the powers model again, and I found that there is also a section about sleep models in MCTB2 with some reading recommendations:

"You can find further information about models like this in books such as B. Alan Wallace’s Dreaming Yourself Awake: Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga for Insight and Transformation, as well as Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. I really like Tenzin Wangyal’s other works also, such as Wonders of the Natural Mind, and I recommend you check out his take on practice. Also recommended is Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama, edited and narrated by Francisco Varela. I personally haven’t yet done as much of those formal sleep-related practices as I have done the other practices that I discuss in this book, so if you want more information about them, you should get it from those who have experience with them."

I have listened to some of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's dharma talks on youtube (I like him) but not gotten to the part about what one should do with the lucid dreamless sleep, as it seems to be more focus on how to get there. I'll have to read the book, I guess.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 1:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 1:03 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I have the sense that there is some kind of disentangling going on, which I'm tuning into kinesthetically. Is that a valid practice?
Romeo Stevens, modified 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 2:58 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/27/19 2:58 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Happened to me accidentally once and I wouldn't say I had any direct insight from it (though there was a hint of insight flavor just from the stretching of what I believed possible) but it was profoundly peaceful in a way most meditation states other than high EQ in 4th jhana aren't.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 11:35 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 11:35 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I have the sense that there is some kind of disentangling going on, which I'm tuning into kinesthetically. Is that a valid practice?

Yes. It is the it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of the sankharas, the giving up and relinquishing of them, freedom from them, non-reliance on them.
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Noah D, modified 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 4:33 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 4:33 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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If you have the ability to be lucid in deep sleep, I would pursue it if I were you, even if you don't believe in it's traditional significance.  That's a really good thing to be able to do naturally.
George S, modified 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 6:29 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 6:18 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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It happens to me sometimes that I fall asleep with my mind brightening and in the morning it seems that I was aware during dreamless sleep. I'm starting to suspect that falling into dark/unaware sleep is an act of willful ignorance, like going out on a sunny day with a hood over your head and pretending it's dark. I just started reading Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep and it seems pretty cool. I'm quite excited by the prospect of being able to add an extra 6 hours of meditation to my day.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 10:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/28/19 10:03 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Is there a way to be mindful about something more than snoring and the occasional purring cat on my chest? How do I make the best of the opportunity?


Not 100% sure what you mean by this, but just a clarification in case it is needed that if you are aware of snoring and your cat purring it is not lucidity in deep sleep but lucidity in hypnopomp or hypnagogia (or while awake).

In lucid deep sleep there is nothing much to be aware of.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:28 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:28 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
neko:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Is there a way to be mindful about something more than snoring and the occasional purring cat on my chest? How do I make the best of the opportunity?


Not 100% sure what you mean by this, but just a clarification in case it is needed that if you are aware of snoring and your cat purring it is not lucidity in deep sleep but lucidity in hypnopomp or hypnagogia (or while awake).

In lucid deep sleep there is nothing much to be aware of.

There are different states of dreamless sleep. One is light, and that is where I'm aware of the snooring and the occasional purring cat, and if I hear another cat scratching on my door to get in, I can wake my body up to open it. There are also two states of deep dreamless sleep, often lumped together into one. I have been lucid in one of them on occasion, I think, and then I was only aware of being aware, although I didn't have the concept for it other than in retrospect. Sorry for being unclear, and thankyou!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:36 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:36 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I have the sense that there is some kind of disentangling going on, which I'm tuning into kinesthetically. Is that a valid practice?

Yes. It is the it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of the sankharas, the giving up and relinquishing of them, freedom from them, non-reliance on them.
I'd better keep at it, then, because lots of sankharas still remain. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:40 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:40 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Noah D:
If you have the ability to be lucid in deep sleep, I would pursue it if I were you, even if you don't believe in it's traditional significance.  That's a really good thing to be able to do naturally.


Okay, thankyou! It's not something I'm in control of, but it happens. I guess I'll keep at it during the snoring, then, to reach the deeper state that is beyond it. I have done so a few times, but I wasn't sure if there was any use to it, as it seems like a state of conscious oblivion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:44 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 2:44 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
agnostic:
It happens to me sometimes that I fall asleep with my mind brightening and in the morning it seems that I was aware during dreamless sleep. I'm starting to suspect that falling into dark/unaware sleep is an act of willful ignorance, like going out on a sunny day with a hood over your head and pretending it's dark. I just started reading Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep and it seems pretty cool. I'm quite excited by the prospect of being able to add an extra 6 hours of meditation to my day.

It was exactly that prospect that made me think that maybe staying aware wasn't enough, that maybe something should be "done", but maybe just staying aware, and nothing else, is the point of it?
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 3:31 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 3:30 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 762 Join Date: 11/26/14 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
There are different states of dreamless sleep. One is light, and that is where I'm aware of the snooring and the occasional purring cat, and if I hear another cat scratching on my door to get in, I can wake my body up to open it.

This would most likely be a form of lucidity during hyponopompic sleep 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic


Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
in one of them on occasion, I think, and then I was only aware of being aware, although I didn't have the concept for it other than in retrospect.

This one, on the other hand, sounds like a legit form of lucidity in deep sleep.

Based on my own experience, I wouldn't rate one as superior to the other in terms of potential for contemplative work.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 5:57 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 5:57 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Yeah, I think there have been instances of both hypnagogic and hypnopompic awareness, as well as instances of deep sleep awareness. This is something that has been going on for quite some time. There have been periods in my practice where I have spent hours shifting between stages without having the words to describe it. I think the extent of awareness in these states is something that has developed gradually. 

Shall I just let this unfold on its own? Or is there something in particular that I should "do"?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 7:18 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/29/19 7:08 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I have the sense that there is some kind of disentangling going on, which I'm tuning into kinesthetically. Is that a valid practice?

Yes. It is the it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of the sankharas, the giving up and relinquishing of them, freedom from them, non-reliance on them.
It's something like having a kinesthetic flashlight shedding light on various knots, enabling them to disentangle themselves. It seems to be easier to have that happen when the narrator sleeps. 

Also, many thanks for your input! I always appreciate your advice.
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 3:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/30/19 3:33 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 99 Join Date: 10/13/19 Recent Posts
I'm so happy to see this thread here, was thinking of making my own one - thank you all! I have some rudimentary answers and some big questions myself!
 
Currently sleep yoga is one of my main practices, which also developed naturally from rather hardcore hwadu/big question practice. In zen tradition, where I come from, big question is similar, I would say, to what you guys here call "insight into annata". Basically it's a highly concentrated effort to examine each microsecond of experience searching for any solid self. Both on cushion and off and later (in my case after 18 years) in dreams and dreamless sleep.
 
So this might be already a hint of the value of dreamless sleep practice. Why? Because - at least in my case - it happened not only thanks to concentration but more - thanks to insight into no-self. In my case it was a result of gradual cultivation after a certified kensho/insight into nature experience.
 
I write about confirmation because later I want to write that pherhaps what traditional zen and contemporary Roshi/teacher will confirm as a "first enlightenment" experience, looses it's relevance in the face of deeper insights that come as the path develops. And both dzogchen and vipasanna/theravada schools know about it :-(.
 
But for the sake of the respect let's say that insight into no-self is a continuum of deeper and more shallow insights.
 
Side note: About the variations of lucid dreamless sleep (awareness of some sensory content, awareness of some mental content, awareness of awareness etc.) you can read here. Neuroscientist think that it all happens in N3-N4 stages of sleep (meaning deep sleep, not only hipo and hypnogogic states).
 
As you, Polly said, in awareness of awareness there is both untangling and dropping the division of subject-object there. This is very interesting to me. Obviously it helps in stabilizing insight into self as boundariless process rather than a thing. Repetition 24/7 will wire it into the brain and transform your energy body networks. Personally, I can observe the whole dependent origination from there and the selfing process - deconstruction of senses and other aggregates to pure awareness from waking to deep sleep and later reconstructions. 
 
You also say it's like being aware of the oblivion. This one is super interesting! I believe after many consultations and much research this is where the rigpa/cessation/gone or whatever-it-is can "manifest". Can write more later.
 
I don't want to write too long of a post in the begining but hope to hear everyone's opinions.
 
Neko, I studied your super analitical post here about similarity of dreamless sleep and formless jhanas and went through similar process and questions. I wonder where you got with the questions you post there.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 12/31/19 1:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/31/19 1:32 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I thank you deeply for sharing your experience with this. It inspires to further exploration, especially since you mention that you can "observe the whole dependent origination from there and the selfing process - deconstruction of senses and other aggregates to pure awareness from waking to deep sleep and later reconstructions". I want to do that! Fascinating. 

It was also very interesting to read the research paper you linked, which questioned previous classifications of sleep stages in a way that definitely makes sense. 

I would love to hear more about your insights into this. 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/13/20 6:03 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Hi Polly and hopefully other wise friends!

I'm sorry for not having written earlier, but life-events (including divorce…) downed on me, so… but since I'm sleeping alone it's easier to observe the dream process. I'm at the begining of a solo retreat right now.
 
Below some summaries of my sleep practice so far. Currently I am not conscious of the first part of the night, where the deepest sleep phases N4 and N3 are the longest. Question 1 is: am I ever lucid in N3/4?
 
Lucidity starts in the second part of the night. Sometimes I meditate after waking up about 3.30 am or just go back to sleep. If I enter the jhanas, the usual panoramic phenomena follow (I try not to touch any piti much and probably skip 4th jhana, which is kind of easily distinguishable for me otherwise, because in high equanimity there is a feeling of being very wise ;-) and at night this seldom happens). Question 2 is: Am I entering the formless jhanas almost immediately? Is that possible?
 
Sooner or later there is probably the entry into the formless jhanas and currently I equate them with dreamless sleep (sub)phases. Question 3 is: is this correct?
 
The below disappear (notice that the order is similar to dependent origination):
  • Emotions and discursive thinking (naming) (if any)
  • Sense of time
  • Biographical sense of self and access to memories
  • Emotional sense of self (emotional marker/perfume)
  • Senses start to shut down with proprioception as the last one
  • Spacious sense of self (location in space) after the bodily sensations disappeared
  • In pure awareness (substrate consciousness) only intention operates (if it was properly installed earlier, because at this point new intentional effort is not possible anymore)
 At this point various scenarios (one or many) can happen until waking up:
  • Intention continues the practice (seeing 3C, hwadu, don't know, even mantra etc.) - that's maybe your question what can be done here, Polly
  • Intention erodes leaving:
    • lucid blank (I call it moss ;-), but Question 4 is if it's 7th jhana of nothingness) or
    • luminous (Question 5: 6th jhana of consciousness?) pure awareness
  • Pure awareness is leaking content of the senses - hearing cats, rain, feeling the sheets rolled and if that's possible (Question 6) I sometimes even feel the roof of my house, the furniture or the space and trees behind the window, used to feel my husband's body and his emotional marker
  • Substrate consciousness starts to project single hipnagoges (voices, 3d colorful objects in black space or sacred geometry like indra's net)
  • Immersive non-lucid dream of a typical mortal ;-)
  • Immersive lucid dream can happen (especially when pure awareness was luminous, Question 7 is whether luminosity as a prerequisite is a must)
  • Immersive non-lucid dream can happen with strange factor X lucid aspect in the background.
  • Lucid aspect itself???? Have mostly Big Questions here.
 Question 8: If we enter from jhana to lucid dream staying lucid all the way, it's clear that lucid dreamless sleep happened in the meantime, right? Because from waking up to REM/N1/dream there are phases N2/3/4 of dreamless sleep to go through. So maybe it's a proof lucid dreamless sleep=formless jhana? We would have to check the physiological parameters of the two states.

If any advanced or experimenting yogi or scholar on this forum ever pondered any of these questions, I would be very happy to talk more! 
 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 5:40 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Hi! I'm very familiar with life-events taking the space they need. May they lead to less suffering and may you have the strength, courage, wisdom and compassion to skillfully deal with the suffering they do involve.

Thanks for a very interesting read! My lucidity is still rare during the night. It mainly happens when I sleep during the day, and that probably means that my sleep is less deep when it occurs. It does happen during a later part of the night sometimes, though, especially if I sleep together with somebody else - which probably also makes my dream somewhat more shallow, even though I feel deeply rested when I wake up.

As for question 6, that happens to me during meditation sometimes. I can vividly feel my kid's movements and sensations and the same for my cats, and I can even feel the friction between my wheels and the ground when a car passes by. During sleep, I once dreamt the ending of a dream that my husband at the time dreamt during the same night. In his dream he was pondering a question, and my dream was the answer to that. When hearing what my husband had dreamt, my dream made sense instead of being nonsensical. It was a very specific question and a very specific answer (nothing containing life wisdom, only trivial and rather absurd). I also tended to pick up on dreams that were typical for him but very untypical for me, so I guess I was tuned into him. I'm thinking that awareness isn't always fully restricted to the mind of an individual.

As for question 2, I have previously been wondering about formless realms for some of these experiences, but I came to the conclusion for my case - which may be entirely different from yours - that there wasn't the kind of concentration and onepointedness that would make it a jhana, but rather the opposite in that sense, although there was strong clarity in some cases in the sense of a very clear presence. I'm still not confident in mapping that sort of thing, though, so this could be total bullshit. 

You are beyond me in this, so I hope somebody more knowledgeable will chime in. 

I did have a lucid out of body experience during sleep once, after my dad had passed away. I was having a conversation with him. It turned out that the same thing had happened to my brother too. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 9:34 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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What do you know... I accidently found some use for lucid dreamless sleep. I have been having an earworm today, a song that we used to sing in a choir 20 years ago or so, 25 maybe. The lyrics were in French, and I don't speak French. Thus I couldn't remember more than a few words, which is kind of irritating when you have a tune stuck in your head. After lunch I decided to do a reclining letting go meditation, typically the sort of meditation where I risk falling asleep. I needed to rest anyway, so why not. After a couple of unknowing events I was very relaxed and fell asleep. I stayed lucid but didn't have any thoughts that I can recall apart from recognizing being asleep and hearing and feeling the breath and the occasional snoring. After one and a half hour I had to wake myself up and go to the bathroom. There I found myself singing the song, with the complete lyrics in French. I could even remember the spelling of most of it. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 9:45 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 762 Join Date: 11/26/14 Recent Posts
Just a general reminder that the answer to "is the experience X jhana number N?" is ALWAYS "it depends" (on how you define jhana number N).

Put otherwise, unless you define jhanas first, the question is intrinsically meaningless.

A more useful question is almost always "what do I do with this?", to which the answer is ALWAYS "that depends" (on what your goals are).

What makes the second one a better question is that asking oneself "what are my goals?" is almost always a better something to busy oneself with than what ultimately boils down to "do I define jhana in such a way that I have attained it, or not?",  which is often mindlessly masturbatory in nature, unless it ties back to your goals (e.g. "do I want bragging rights?").
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 9:51 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 9:50 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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(The lucid phases of sleep, unlike the jhanas, are pretty well defined, so I suggest sticking with those. You get the best of what worlds: People will understand what you are talking about AND you get the bragging rights, as lucid dreamless sleep is a pretty fine attainment indeed, particularly if you can pull it off with any kind of consistency, which is much better than some 400$ per hour "gurus" out there can do. So kudos.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 9:57 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Good points. 

For the moment I have as an immediate goal to learn to let go of stuff that causes unnecessary suffering for me and/or others. Jhanas are not that relevant to that goal*, but being able to rest deeply at will is useful, regardless of how anyone defines it. 

(Remembering French lyrics to my earworm 25 years after singing it in choir was not a conscious goal, but apparently the session took care of that anyway.)

*) edited to add: Not for me anyway. For me the step is too big to go from obsessing with something to jhanas. I find it easier to relax in an unfocused way when I need to let go.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 10:21 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

For the moment I have as an immediate goal to learn to let go of stuff that causes unnecessary suffering for me and/or others. 

Tobacco, drunk driving, and listening to loudspeakers on public transport come to mind as effective candidates for that. Good news is you can still keep up a meditation practice on top of that. 

If you are already abiding by basic manners, there is not much I can offer in the way of help on that front.

When it comes to causing necessary suffering to others, though... now that's a topic that piques my interest and makes me prick up my ears. But it s maybe for another thread. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 10:47 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Haha! I don't do any of those things, and I do my best to maintain basic manners, but I can be a bit of control freak in some respects and I have some triggers that cause me to be more reactive than I would like. You know, the usual stuff that most of us struggle with. The stuff that holds awakening back. 

I think I have been pretty good at causing necessary suffering for people, as I sometimes see a little bit more than allows people to stay in their comfort zone and sometimes - unfortunately or fortunately, depending on circumstances - lack the patience to shut up about it. Quite a number of people have thanked me afterwards for being an eye opener and helping them to develop and grow and even on the long term decreasing their suffering. That is very risky business, though, and I have worked a lot on learning when it really isn't necessary, and that is something that I still need to remind myself of, because not everyone is ready for a development just because I see the potential, and forcing it on someone can be cruel. I have a sense that you are very familiar with this sort of thing yourself?
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:06 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I can be a bit of control freak in some respects and I have some triggers that cause me to be more reactive than I would like. You know, the usual stuff that most of us struggle with. The stuff that holds awakening back. 

In this case, the thing that you call an awakening is not the thing that I call an awakening.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:06 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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It probably is at least partly in my case, though, because it messes up my practice. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:13 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
It probably is at least partly in my case, though, because it messes up my practice. 

The claim that psychological imperfections get in the way of awakening is just an alternative formulation of the idea that awakening implies psychological perfection by way of "if A implies B, then not B implies not A".

Just making sure that you are aware that you are adopting a psychological / behavioural perfection model of awakening. (EDIT: Or something pretty darn close to it.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:14 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Oh, no no. Not like that. It messes up my practice by distracting me and making me tense and unfocused. And it makes it pretty darn hard to have cessations or get into jhanas.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:36 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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It holds me back technically, not morally.

Well, it may be holding me back morally too, but that's not what I was thinking about and I don't think of awakening and morality work as the same thing. It's just hard to meditate when I'm wired up, worried or pissed off. As simple as that. 

Or overly enthusiastic, for that matter.
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:51 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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It messes up my practice by distracting me and making me tense and unfocused.

This is not the most effective way to look at hindrances and interruptions to your practice. Neko is making a very important point - if things bother you the way to approach them is to investigate why. There is a point at which these things will stop being bothersome, but that point only comes if the bothers are addressed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 12:02 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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And that is exactly why I'm currently doing the kind of practice that I'm doing. Because I do that. I combine letting go with vipassana, to investigate just like that. I don't always write down all details publicly, especially not in a thread about something else.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 11:59 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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If anyone wants to chime in on lucid dreamless sleep, I'm sure hae1en would like your input. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 12:49 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Chris Marti:
It messes up my practice by distracting me and making me tense and unfocused.

This is not the most effective way to look at hindrances and interruptions to your practice. Neko is making a very important point - if things bother you the way to approach them is to investigate why. There is a point at which these things will stop being bothersome, but that point only comes if the bothers are addressed.

Actually, I was thinking about editing in that of course I also know that it is a great opportunity for investigation, but I thought it was off topic so I didn't. It is a good point. But I wrote what I did to adress what Neko was talking about, namely ideas of moral perfection or whatever one wants to call it. I was trying to very briefly clarify that I do not adhere to such models. 

One thing that really does bother me is how hopeless it is to communicate with more than one person at a time and keep it short and effective without being misunderstood. It is really draining for me, especially since I process a lot of my thoughts on a less conceptual level (that's an autistic thing, not a claim about some attainment, by the way, just to be clear about that) and have to translate it into words. And so I need to be able to let go sufficiently to make investigation possible, because otherwise it isn't. That's life with a combination of being autistic and having ADHD and Tourette syndrome. And some related traumas, for that matter. And when I do explain the specifics that makes what I say make sense to others, there will always be someone that tells me that I invest too much in identity and need to let go of that. Well, I try, but when I do, nobody understands a bloody thing of what I'm saying because my conditioning challenges the common ground in communication. Or rather, the difference in conditioning does.  
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 1:08 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Hi! Great to see some traffic in this thread.:
My lucidity is still rare during the night. It mainly happens when I sleep during the day, and that probably means that my sleep is less deep when it occurs. It does happen during a later part of the night sometimes.
As for question 6, that happens to me during meditation sometimes. I can vividly feel my kid's movements and sensations and the same for my cats, and I can even feel the friction between my wheels and the ground when a car passes by. During sleep, I once dreamt the ending of a dream that my husband at the time dreamt during the same night. 
As for question 2, I have previously been wondering about formless realms for some of these experiences, but I came to the conclusion for my case - which may be entirely different from yours - that there wasn't the kind of concentration and onepointedness that would make it a jhana, but rather the opposite in that sense, although there was strong clarity in some cases in the sense of a very clear presence.
Regarding lucidity during the day naps and early morning sleep, I know how it tastes. It might mean that we are not lucid beyond the N2/N3 phases of sleep. Some people call only N4 phase deep sleep. And N4 does not occur in the morning.

These "kinestethic" impressions are a totally different subject, but very interesting as well. Assuming they are not our brains firing to sustain the map of our environment but based on memory not on actual new input - and I am guessing we have some first person perspective proofs for it ;-)... wouldn't it mean that the trained awareness is somehow outstretched beyond the content of the senses? But it goes against buddhist psychology, doesn't it?

Sometimes when I'm with someone say in an emotionally loaded situation and with closed eyes I seem to feel two distinguished presences which I call sense of self markers - only one is mine. "So this is how to be a bat, so this is how it feels being you :-))". It's like you could borrow someone's elses qualia. Or maybe it's just as we all had a distinct perfume we emit and it's somehow related to the shapes of our bodies. And a thought comes at such times: what is it that perceives those two people? When I'm entering deeper meditations my own sense of self marker and body outline in the begining hang in the air and then they are being relocated to the peripheral awareness to die :-). So this happens in sleep as well.

As far as jhanas are concerned, especially formless ones (if we decide to define/name them like this) - the notion that they are not clear or single pointed seems important here. If you are familiar with some hard jhanas (like Ajahn Brahm's) descriptions, they are pretty solid-dense, to the degree that you can't even do any vipassana in them. And that makes them dull in a sense. And that is why Thanissaro Bhikku calls them toxic, right? Unless you have impregnated them earlier with intention heavy enough to sustain itself there. Anyhow, I've been in hard jhana (closed sense doors) only once in my life in waking state - but it was similar to being there while sleeping, which is what I have rather regular access to right now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 1:11 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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To get back on topic, it might be the case that I got into lucid dreamless sleep for the purpose of survival, because there was a great need for rest from language while staying lucid, to find the kind of space that would make life bearable and allow for healing and regeneration and provide the energy needed both for investigation and for dealing with stuff in daily life. 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 3:33 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:
(The lucid phases of sleep, unlike the jhanas, are pretty well defined, so I suggest sticking with those. You get the best of what worlds: People will understand what you are talking about AND you get the bragging rights, as lucid dreamless sleep is a pretty fine attainment.

Hi Neko, thanks for answering. I was following some of your lucid dream adventures a while ago. I'm seeing you gave up mapping lucid sleep and jhanas. Am I guessing correctly that you have answered your own question: Why do I do it for? May I ask if you are using lucid sleep for any kind of practice right now?

I come from a zen tradition, where we keep a great question (hwadu) gradually being able to sustain it from waking to dreaming to dreamless sleep stages. It works as a feedback of how your practice is progressing, a measure of your breakthrough depth I would say. 

My goal here is to I guess clarify the way in which my lineage understands awakening. And to see what is it that we are actually teaching. Aren't we teaching concentration only and not real insight.... This is actually pretty delicate issue, because it makes me wonder if my own teachers and their teachers really could distinguish:
  • the landscapes of jhanas (with eyes closed) or
  • unitive experiences (when self unites with outside world and recognises the sky and ground as it's own greater seat/body) or 
  • pure awareness empty of objects (assuming that such massive phenomena like luminosity or bliss are not objects
from real end of fabrications. I'm not a scholar, but have read a bit and traditionally some zen schools were following Yogachara model of transformation of 8 consciousnessess, including alayavijnana (which transforms into bright mirror pure awareness). And of course some other schools (like dzogchen, here is a great article from Alan Wallec) say that samatha practice breaks only through your individual psyche towards this substrate pure awareness, but this is not the end and pure awareness also has to be emptied.

I spent significant amount of years and dedicated big part of my life to my lineage to be very worried when I now discover something more in my own practice and when I ponder if I am qualified enough to help others. 

As Polly below I will be grateful for some sensitivity here. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 1:41 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Very interesting!

That hypothesis makes sense, but I guess it's an empirical question. I hear that some stay lucid throughout the night. Maybe some day we can too. I'm very far from it now, though. 

I don't know what buddhist psychology says, but empirically, I mean phenomenologically, there does seem to be awareness beyond what the sense organs can perceive, depending on how we define sense organs. But the mind is a sense, too, after all. I don't think of the mind as the same thing as the brain, so I wouldn't call it a sense organ. I wouldn't say that awareness in the examples we have put forward goes beyond what the mind can perceive of itself. I'm not sure that minds are strictly individual, at least not all the time. The boundaries of what people think of as individual is very arbitrary, I'd say. And obviously, this information did appear in our minds, right? I don't know how, but it did. My current very rudimentary explanation model is that awareness doesn't know boundaries, only our access to it does, and that has some flexibility to it. I wonder if lucid dreamless sleep can get around the limitations that we are used to having. Maybe it is sort of a hack that makes it possible to tap into a less limited awareness? I guess that's an empirical question too.

I think I recognize what you say about feeling one's partner's sense of self marker too (useful concept, by the way). For me that mainly happens during sex. And yes, floating out to peripheral awareness too.

I don't think I have been in what anyone would define as hard jhana. I once did have the feeling that everything was completely solid and dense, though, and even time was matter. That was really weird. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 10:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 2/15/20 10:57 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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hae1en:
Hi Neko, thanks for answering. I was following some of your lucid dream adventures a while ago. I'm seeing you gave up mapping lucid sleep and jhanas.
Not at all. I just gave up the idea that the word "jhana" has any meaning that is commonly accepted and universally understood by all practitioners. Besides, I am not a Buddhist, so I am not invested in the idea that there is any "true meaning" of the word jhana that we need to rediscover to do things correctly.

I use a bunch of maps for concentration states and lucid dreaming. I am quite the map freak. The so-called "glossary of fire kasina practice", which I have contributed to, is one big chunk of my current lucid dreaming / lucid sleep map and practice. Same goes with concentration, I use about five or six different maps for that. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 1:42 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Okay, that sparked my inner phenomenology junky. Can we find all those maps somewhere? 

Edit: Okay, so that was written before my ADHD medication kicked in. Sorry. It's right there in that glossary, right? I'll have to check it out.

To clarify: I do have a more long-term goal of exploring as many states of consciousness as I possibly can, just for the fun of it. It's just that I currently have to prioritize survival (and decreased suffering is included in that) due to circumstances, and I believe that being able to temporarily let go of any hang-ups at will is necessary for that goal as well. 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 11:43 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 11:23 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Is this what you mean? https://firekasina.org/glossary/

First couple of minutes when reading I was wondering, if I'm on the right site, but then I got an idea. Is this what you do with hipnagoges?

This seems very advanced, to be able to sustain hipnagoges at such geometric level avoiding going straight to more symbolically loaded or immersive lucid dream. And generally advanced... given that there can be no apparent nimitta when one goes to sleep. For some people. Do you equate lucid dream in this stage with fourth screen? Some of my late stage hipnagoges come from early stage lava-like nimittas generated by mind only. How long can you sustain such hipnagoges? Do you also play with sound (or touch/taste) hipnagoges building up their complexity? Apart from feedback on your concentration level - how do you make use of it? If this is too personal to share (together with your maps etc.) - just wink ;-).

Not a long ago I met a dzogchen practitioner who told me that when they pracitice samatha there use visual signs of success. One of them is called Indra's net, it's like a web with sparkling diamond-like dots on the intersections (or without). Tends to be 3d/not flat. Then other signs of progression follow. I get this sometimes but never paid any attention. But it's similar to the field of stars. I haven't been reading much of DhO but I think Polly also wrote sth about it elswhere? 

Anyhow, wonder how it's useful. Personally I'm currently invested in the self-construction, DO and aggregates construction which happen in dream/sleep. For example:
  • How many subsections or microfunctions consciousness have and how is it to operate with and without them in sleep/dream: discursive thinking, recognising names, recognising function with and without overlays of biographical self or pure awareness/true self.
  • How does will and intention work out in the dream/sleep.
  • What does memory have to do with it? How the dream memory is formed? What percentage of it is 1:1 reconstruction and what percentage reinterpretation? Especially when we return from "transpersonal dreams" with altered/deconstructed consciousness which attains various peak experiences or valid insights to personal vantage point.
  • How can we use kinesthetic memory / experience marker as an intention transporting us later to that experience?
  • In each non-lucid dream aggregates function, since usually biographical self is reconstructed, therfore consciousness is also reconstructed. Technically speaking if we want to call dreams consciouss -all of them are consciouss. So it must be another function of consciousness which helps us to realise we are dreaming. How would we name this function? Simply criticism?
  • What is it that can be aware of both high clarity and dulness? Or is it just a continuum of high clarity----->low clarity imbued directly within objects? If so, what gives these objects priority, making some of them clearer?
  • And most important - Is there any pure formless awareness in the sleep or is just the so called pure awareness a major, massive, panoramic manifestation/object like space or luminosity or energy current. 
Curious, if anyone was working with any of these and is willing to share.
 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 12:04 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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In the consciousness model of Yogachara, which is I guess closest to what we call phenomenological, I think that individual streams of conscioussness meet in alayavijnana, 8th consciousness. They believed it's the source of both material and mental phenomena. The sixth consciousness, mano vijnana, can be called sense organ for thoughts. Apparently buddhist psychology views thoughts similarily to sounds or sights. They are something which becomes the content when illumined by... well, by alayavijnana again. The same storage house consciousness which stores memories. I would have to check if various siddhi like mind reading are explained through this model.

If dreamless sleep helps us tap to this broader consciousness, that would explained your earlier access to the song in French - because it's the same stream, where memories are stored. 

Also, I sometimes have the impression while in what I call jhanas that the moment my concentration diminishes... if I only silghtly take off my attentive mindfulness finger from the closed doors...  my substrate consciousness (alayavijnana) instead of being calm and frozen will burst out into hipnagoges and dreams (memories). PLUS, sometimes I also have the impression that it can become a door for... something wicked that this way comes ;-). Like samboghakaja like appearances. Still having thought that these conversations might be too personal to share here :-). Don't you feel like this?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 12:47 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I did mention visions like Indra's net, although I had no idea that's what they were called. I have also seen different versions of the flower of life, mostly flat ones but also one that was curved around itself and moving around (this was before I had come across depictions of that version). These visions have mainly come in brief flashes, both in meditation and while waking up in the morning, but around SE and in one of my reviews they would linger. I'm not a visual person, so to me this was a big deal.

Thanks for the link! I'll dive in to read it. And thanks for all the information about the mythology around this! I know so little. 

I'll have to explore those purple swirls more (flourescent violet is reliably accessible to me whereas access to other colors comes and goes). So much to explore! For me it is easier to work with the nada sound and energetic sensations. I will take up fire kasina again some time, though, in a more systematic way, because my brief first encounters with it were surprisingly effective. I could barely believe my eyes... or my mind, I guess. 

Too personal? Maybe. In my case, it is already common knowledge that I'm weird, so it's not like it would come as a surprise to anyone, inlcuding the professors at the University where I work. I kind of rock the excentric but serious nisch. I'm the bohemian spice to the serious intellectual crews. On a more serious note, I'd be happy to take the conversation elsewhere if you are uncomfortable. No problem. 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 2:32 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Just noticed that this thread seems to get relatively lot of traffic, or is it not? I wonder why is it that only we talk? I'm so curious what people think.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/16/20 3:19 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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They are probably just curious about what neko has to say. Some participants' comments always render lots of viewings. People are pack animals. emoticon

I was just thinking... Isn't it very imprecise to call those color swirls hypnagogic? I periodically have them as I go about doing stuff, with my eyes open. I can't be on the verge of sleeping then, can I? I mean, I do have attention deficit, but... It mainly happens in the dark (which can be during the day here in Sweden) but it also happens at yoga classes and sometimes at other times. Once it happened during an experimental dance show where they used very special sound effects. It took me a while to realize that the psychedelic light show was only in my mind. I was wondering how they managed to make all that light appear among the audience as threedimensional figurations. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 9:20 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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@hae1en

Yes, correct, that's what you do in all phases of sleep, including hypnopomp and REM = 4th screen.

It does take a lot of work to get there, both from the lucid dreaming side and from the FK side. About a week to ten days on retreat to power up to most of those stages.

As to what you do with it, I have written a list here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/a1ma0v/fire_kasina/eas69ww/
it applies equally well to the FK and to LD for all of the states/visuals in the glossary.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 9:23 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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hae1en:

sometimes I also have the impression that it can become a door for... something wicked that this way comes ;-). Like samboghakaja like appearances.

Spot on! Glad we came to the same conclusion. You rock, hae1en.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 9:32 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Isn't it very imprecise to call those color swirls hypnagogic? I periodically have them as I go about doing stuff, with my eyes open. I can't be on the verge of sleeping then, can I? I mean, I do have attention deficit, but... It mainly happens in the dark (which can be during the day here in Sweden) but it also happens at yoga classes and sometimes at other times.

Yes, the phosphenes themselves are not in any sense hypnagogic, it is some things that they do that can be classified as related to hypnagogia, since some sets of patterns tend to appear more easily in hypnagogia. Then you can work to "bring" those patterns into wakefulness, but it would be a complex discussion without defining clearly what we mean by "wakefulness".
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 11:22 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:

Yes, correct, that's what you do in all phases of sleep, including hypnopomp and REM = 4th screen.

Great to have that confirmed. I thought so but wasn’t entirely sure.

neko:

It does take a lot of work to get there, both from the lucid dreaming side and from the FK side. About a week to ten days on retreat to power up to most of those stages.

As to what you do with it, I have written a list here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/a1ma0v/fire_kasina/eas69ww/
it applies equally well to the FK and to LD for all of the states/visuals in the glossary.


Thanks for sharing this valuable information!

I guess that this means that when I had a helpful "vision" (which involved more senses than just vision) before SE, while striving to get into equanimity, that counted as 4th screen? It was during sitting meditation and I was lucid and I had the experience of making a lot off effort trying to climb into a glider plane. The plane, on the other hand, was gliding very effortlessly, just out of my reach. The irony was obvious. It was utterly silly to go through all that effort to reach something that was effortless. "Point taken", I thought, and it did help. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 11:09 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Isn't it very imprecise to call those color swirls hypnagogic? I periodically have them as I go about doing stuff, with my eyes open. I can't be on the verge of sleeping then, can I? I mean, I do have attention deficit, but... It mainly happens in the dark (which can be during the day here in Sweden) but it also happens at yoga classes and sometimes at other times.

Yes, the phosphenes themselves are not in any sense hypnagogic, it is some things that they do that can be classified as related to hypnagogia, since some sets of patterns tend to appear more easily in hypnagogia. Then you can work to "bring" those patterns into wakefulness, but it would be a complex discussion without defining clearly what we mean by "wakefulness".

I understand. Thankyou! I remember that very early in my practice, if I paid any attention to the swirls, they tended to draw me into sleep or dreamy dullness. That has changed over time. I also remember that there was early on a pattern of the swirls that seemed to be a sign that unconscious processing was going on, and that unconscious processing seemed to be what would hijack my attention and make me forget that I was supposed to meditate.

When I tried to make sense of my experiences with lucid sleep more recently, I got to think about how I have just been assuming that when I'm lucid about what is happening, that would mean that it's a state of wakefullness. It made me remember how I would earlier fall asleep when watching the swirls. It also made me think of all the dream scenes that I have experienced during meditation, some of them very lucid, others not so much. I don't really believe that there are any clear boundaries between sleep and wakefulness anymore. 

I guess I have already brought some hypnagogic patterns into lucidity. It would be very interesting to explore that further. That is something tangible to work on. Thankyou!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 11:13 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:
hae1en:

sometimes I also have the impression that it can become a door for... something wicked that this way comes ;-). Like samboghakaja like appearances.

Spot on! Glad we came to the same conclusion. You rock, hae1en.
emoticon I think hae1en rocks too. I'm so glad that the two of you can have this exchange and that I get to see it and learn as much as I can from it. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 1:14 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I guess that this means that when I had a helpful "vision" (which involved more senses than just vision) before SE, while striving to get into equanimity, that counted as 4th screen? It was during sitting meditation and I was lucid and I had the experience of making a lot off effort trying to climb into a glider plane. The plane, on the other hand, was gliding very effortlessly, just out of my reach. The irony was obvious. It was utterly silly to go through all that effort to reach something that was effortless. "Point taken", I thought, and it did help. 
If it was not photorealistic but grainy, we call it 2nd screen. If it was photorealistic but relatively flat, we call it 3rd screen. If it was photorealistic and immersive, like a world you can navigate, we call it 4th screen.

From how you describe it, it sounds like 3rd screen. 4th screen phenomena are very rare, and for most people most of the work is on 2nd screen. (It's not like one screen is better or more conducive to insight than the others.)
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 1:17 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I don't really believe that there are any clear boundaries between sleep and wakefulness anymore. 

Yup. Great insight. Read up on the illusory body practice in the six dharmas of Naropa and see if you can make that insight into a daytime practice.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 1:45 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Definitely not grainy, but I think one could say that it was simplified in its content, sort of minimalistic. Nothing more than what was needed to convey the point. I never bothered to look at any details, as I was busy trying to climb while at the same time observing what I was doing. The kinesthetic apects were more elaborate than the visual ones. I could feel the effort very clearly. The heavyness of my body, the movements, the strain on my muscles, the surface of the plane that I couldn't get a grip of... Visually it was the glider plane, which was small and red and driverless. Beside me on the ground there was a man. I never really looked closely at him, but afterwards I asumed that it was Michael Taft, my teacher at the time. The grass was green and the skye was blue, and there was nothing whatsoever in the background, so yeah, I guess that can be described as relatively flat, let alone unimaginative. I think I finally understand the difference between third and fourth screen now. I appreciate it. That can be applied to one of the lucid dreams I have had, too. Imagining things visually is hard for me, and when I realized that I was having a lucid dream and that I could do anything I wanted, I decided that I'd go to Camusdarrach Beach in Scotland (one of those places that can recharge me). I made myself a hidden door to go through and then the view of Camusdarrach Beach appeared as if on a movie screen which I swam into. The vision in my meditation was much less flat than that, and the interaction with the plane felt very real. However, there was never any change of scenery, so as far as navigation goes, it had room for improvement. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 1:47 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I don't really believe that there are any clear boundaries between sleep and wakefulness anymore. 

Yup. Great insight. Read up on the illusory body practice in the six dharmas of Naropa and see if you can make that insight into a daytime practice.
Thanks! Will do. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 1:51 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Sounds like what we call "cartoonish", even though the word did not make it into the glossary for some reason, I guess Daniel must have forgot.

If so, yeah, cartoonish is kind of like a grey area between 2nd and 3rd screen, but personally I tend to regard it as a subtype of 3rd screen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 2:05 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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That sounds like a very fitting name for it, especially since it used the type of wordless comic release that can often be found in some cartoons. 

Sometimes there are brief interludes of very photorealistic scenes in my meditation, as if there's interference from someone's ongoing dream. Sometimes I'm one of the people doing stuff in them, such as stirring a huge pot with a huge spoon together with several other people who are all rounded up around the pot with head-scarves and aprons, and then the scene dissolves as rapidly as it arose. 
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 4:02 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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That's A LOT to take in. 

Before I process - did you, Neko, ever thought of comparing nothingness jhana (the way u define it) to working with murk and luminouss boundless awareness jhana to any other stage of visual manifestation? Maybe imprecise question...

What happens with luminosity in your luminous jhanas? Does it start with a point/blob nimitta for you or rather is it already luminous landscape so to say, already from the moment after access concentration? 

This Winter I resolved to keep any luminosity only in peripheral awareness or background in order to prevent myself from constant reifying it as a cosmic watcher / god-like intelligence and see through it. It's difficult because we have a very personal relationship after 10 years of this sacred marriage (my teachers either neglected it or strenghtened) ;-). Anyway I do it quite well now.

In the central place of experience field I rather explore something I call moss/ marker of 7th nothingness jhana. It can later develop into a full blown landscape. It can sustain minimal mental activity only. I guess I do it after the remark I got from Adyashanti to separate the awareness and emptiness aspects in practice. This is one of dozen things I do. 

However I wonder if it does any good to refrain from luminosity to such degree. I noticed I have WAY less lucid dreams and only this moss-like quality is somehow lucidly present in the background of my non-lucid dreams. Does it make sense? Also bliss is diminished, but this is a good thing cuz it gets too wild.

Later add-on: It seems that what I'm learning now is staying aware in progressively more dull/unconscious states. Useful?

Anyhow, do u generally view luminosity as some prime factor in your practice, superior and more potent than others? Or not. 
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 5:03 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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(Note on language: I tend to use "luminosity" for that thing which, together with emptiness, makes two faces of the same coin, and "illumination" for the concrete phenomenon of seeing lights behind the eyelid.)


1) The Murk has some of the qualities of the Dissolution ñana, particularly when it first becomes the most prominent experience in a FK cycle, which can last for several days for me, quite frustrating.

2) There is definitely a very strong relationship between lucid dreamless sleep (the real deal, not some forms of hypnopomp that can be mistaken for it) and the 8th jhana (the real deal, that jhana that only has a hard version and not a deep version). They definitely have very similar lessons to teach, particularly in the process of exiting them, if you are extremely present when you come out of them, a fruition is extremely likely to pop within a few seconds.

3) Illumination starts for me most of the time as a combination of two types of waves: Concentric towards the centre of the visual field (whether there is some kind of nimitta or dot there, or not), or swirling around it in clockwise or counterclockwise fashion, could be any colour, but gold and purple are the more common ones. The White and Gold (see the glossary) is a second way illumination can show up for me, from above. The third and the fourth ways are those that you mention: an intensification of the area around the dot / in the nimitta, or the whole visual field becoming more or less homogeneously bright. The fourth way is the most subtle for me, but I work on it even if it is very subtle. (I have a friend that gets mode 4 all the time and to her it is like a 200 Watt light bulb shining on her face... picture me envious.)

4) With illumination, some time ago I started to work on the quality of similarity between illumination, the nada sound, and piti as felt in the body. That opened the way to tasting the see/hear/feel of illumination/nada/piti throughout all of space, which is a deeper, more complete flavour of luminosity (see the note on language above).

5) As I see things, point (4) would be related to the 5th/6th jhana, and if you want to relate it to Adyashanti's tip of separating emptiness from awareness, which I think is a good tip, the emptiness side is closer to the work in point (2), only what I do is try to taste what Daniel calls "aspect of 7th/8th jhana" during daily activities, that is, X.ñ7 and X.ñ8 in the fractal model from MCTB.

6) I wouldn't refrain from luminosity, but I think it is definitely necessary to shred luminosity itself at least every now and then to avoid the luminosity trap, but that depends on your goals of course. Just train yourself not to see luminosity as some kind of ground or refuge, but as a specific sensation that arises and passes like all other sensations. I wouldn't call it a prime factor in my practice, just an important one, but I am by nature more of an aversive dry shredder than a blissful spacey jhanist.

7) Awareness in dullness: Super useful as I see it. It is as important as learning to stop dullness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/17/20 5:35 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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neko:
I tend to use "luminosity" for that thing which, together with emptiness, makes two faces of the same coin

Finally a simple definition that I understand!

neko:
With illumination, some time ago I started to work on the quality of similarity between illumination, the nada sound, and piti as felt in the body. That opened the way to tasting the see/hear/feel of illumination/nada/piti throughout all of space, which is a deeper, more complete flavour of luminosity (see the note on language above).
I worked with this a while ago, exactly this! It was extremely powerful. It drew me into repeated fruitions that took away the world gradually over and over again, after first making everything completely bright, pretty much like what your friend experiences, I think, although for me this hasn't lasted. It was during a review phase when my concentration was much stronger than now. In that strong light there was no body, and then it was neither bright nor dark and it was completely silent, that is, no nada sound at all. Silence the way it normally never presents. Silence not as the absence of sound but as if there could never be sound. And then I was sort of drawn into a singularity, gradually and slowly. Over and over again. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 6:11 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I'm wondering about the conutinuum between non-lucid dreams and lucid dreams... that is a continuum, right? Throughout my life I have periodically had the ability to reenter into a nightmare and turn around the end of it. I never saw that as lucid dreaming, and it wasn't, because once I had reentered the dream, I would buy into it. Yet I somehow managed to retain the intention to turn it around. If I was chased by someone that seemed dangerous, I would for instance turn it into a child's play and jump out from my hiding place to say peekaboo. Is there a name for this on some map? Can it be developed? I'm assuming of course that adding actual lucidity to it would be the obvious way to develop it, but are there more aspects to it?

(Why oh why did I procrastinate learning about these things for so long?!)
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 8:41 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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@ Linda (or do you prefer Polly? I think I got it from Shinheads),

The fact that you could project parts of the swirls during this show into the "wakeful reality" is very interesting. My friend can also do that, he can manifest (for himself) a Tibetan letter not only on his mind screen but integrate it between the trees in the park, let's say. His brother, who is not a dzogchen practitioner, can do that too. He can also reproduce one's face and body or other objects on his mind screen in color and in 3D! He does it with me sometimes and when I catch him with eyes closed I tell him not to fool around with an avatar, when he has me at hand! :-)) 

Anyhow, since it runs in his family I diagnose it as a genetic form of neurodiversity, probably something around eidetic or photographic memory.  He's an artist, can draw because he sees all the details in such high resolution.

I've been reading a bit of how you process information here and there and it's really interesting. I wonder to what degree what we do with our minds practicing is rewiring our brains and creating new networks, which become our default modes of operation. For example I spent so much time (over 2 years in intensive retreat setting, after 2 earlier years of retreat time devoted attaining it) wiring the witness/pure awareness perspective into my being that it's often easier for me to idenfify with the awareness hanging in space than with my body and more often I look from outside my body than from within. I can sometimes feel sense of  self markers of many people at the time.

Generally it's nice to get to know you better in all your bohemian-autistic-weird incarnations :-)
. I think I was reading parts of your log last year, but it might be before your SE. Congratulations! I think I never had any SE or cessation-like experiences although I looked for them in retrospect. As I said my teachers confirmed some of "my insights"/kensho-type experiences, but these were unitive experiences of body/mind dropping and becoming everything. Which I later misconscrued, adding more dual views to them, as I now understand it. I don't recall any "discontinuities" or "edited frames". Which is somehow weird and also very sad given that I'm not sure if I can teach meditation to anyone at this point. I spent many years in "altered states of consciousness", especially when I was living in monasteries in Asia (I'd rather not disclose which ones) and no SE... but well I just continue and see.


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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 9:06 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Neko, I have to experiment with what you write about, it seems a very serious game.

For now - on which screen black and white images appear? I mean most hipnagoges of a typical mortal are black and whitish or colorless. Do you consider it a screen?

Also, I'm familiar with the swirls of illumination you talk about - are they also phosphenes? Do you know what mother science would tell her children about it? Do you think Ajahn Brahm would call the swirls nimittas? He calls the blobs nimmittas. I think Visuddhimaga calls even the web nimitta. 

There are simple visions which I would not call hipnagoges, although they might have similar singular and "I'm just hanging out there in this mind chamber" quality to them like colorful 3d hipnagoges (if one gets such, for me only in high jhana). For me they can happen in the drifts or slides of consciousness (it's like a form of momentary diversion from jhana towards something else). It might be smoke or heated air for example, plus others... do you know what I mean?

"Yes, correct, that's what you do in all phases of sleep, including hypnopomp and REM = 4th screen."

The very same friend I am writing about to Linda, the one which can project images into wakefulness ;-) and possibly have eidetic memory, clearly distinguishes between lucid dream appearences and astral. I've never had any OBE, but in my own experience sense the difference between hollow avatars from lucid dreams (they are only zombie-like projections of individual mind) and other types of presences.

I am only asking here, why are these two types of experiences - lucid dream (which you can control), dream or immersive vision from FK and astral (which as I hear you cannot change)/sambogakaya both listed as fourth screen?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 10:14 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Oh, are you who I think you are, someone with whom I have had many interesting conversations in shinheads? Or just somebody else who is equally interesting?

I think I actually prefer Polly or Polly Ester, but that's not important. I just never really bought into the idea of being Linda, and Polly Ester is a more obvious fiction and thus feels less false, and at least Pol(l)y implies multitudes, but I can play the part of Linda as well. It's all empty anyway. emoticon All the incarnations. 

I know that I'm in no position to diagnose anyone, but if it were to turn out that you haven't already had stream entry a long time ago, I will eat one of my hats. You are way ahead of me (but thanks anyway emoticon). And I think there will always be people who are interested in learning cool hacks and meaningful practices beyond the mainstream.

I do think that we are rewiring our brains, and I think that neurodiversity means that we are starting from different directions. At the same time, I don't know if brains are any more "real" than any other construction, just more consensual than some. Maybe they are holograms like some scientists suggest. Delusions in which we are trapped as long as we live in this form. Central in some paradigms, less so in others. Regerdless, I am not beyond the limitations of this body, including its brain. It's plastic but I can't turn it into a virtual unicorn at will. I find it fascinating to learn about the diversity of sensory processing. I have had many interesting conversations with people who digress from majority functioning over the years, and I find that very helpful for deconstructing things that people tend to take for granted. 

I wouldn't say that I projected the swirls, but something did. They are mainly faint and transparental, but sometimes - much more rarely - they partly block the view of things. I do not have a photographic memory. It is rather the opposite. My visual memory is very poor. It is rapidly getting better since I started my daily practice, but I believe it is still poorer than average. I did have a great score on the test that was done when I got my diagnoses, but the ecological validity of that test was ludicrous. I mean, when I joined Shinheads, which wasn't that long ago (the end of 2018 perhaps?), I was asked in a discussion whether I could picture the wall behind me. I couldn't even remember the color of it or whether or not it had a pattern. It turned out that it's plain white. And this was in my own living room, which is also where I sleep, and I had been living there for more than a decade. I can picture it now. I remember how confusing I found the talking about screens and Shinzen's talking about different spatial locations for thoughts. I love it that I have now found teachings that say that all those senses of having locations for them are just constructions. I think it's utterly fascinating, though, that such constructions can be created, and I admire the technical skills that such constructions require, and I want to learn how to "do" it, both because it's cool and because I think that may deepen the understanding of how illusory it all is.

Oh, and thankyou for asking all those great questions! I want the answers, too. Some of it I have been wondering for a while.

As for why all those different things are referred to as fourth screen, I assumed that it only or mainly refers to the complexity of how it presents visually?

Heh, I have had dreams about magickally controlling the reality of what happened on the TV. It was very photorealistic and interactive and detailed and I controlled it with great precision. I just didn't realize that I might as well do it with what occurred outside the TV screen, as it was all a dream any way. Of course, everything that occurred outside the TV was made up as well, equally much, without me realizing it. And I guess that can be said about our whole reality? So maybe one could say that was fourth screen presenting itself as third screen? And that we are all constructing forth screen outside the screen we are thinking of as a screen, all our waking time.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 1:06 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 762 Join Date: 11/26/14 Recent Posts
hae1en:
For now - on which screen black and white images appear?
We call it second screen, not that it matters enormously most of the time, but third screen can appear through holes or tears in the second screen, which is when it matters.


I mean most hipnagoges of a typical mortal are black and whitish or colorless. Do you consider it a screen?
Actually, for most people there is quite a bit of colour in hypnagogic imagery.


Also, I'm familiar with the swirls of illumination you talk about - are they also phosphenes? Do you know what mother science would tell her children about it? Do you think Ajahn Brahm would call the swirls nimittas? He calls the blobs nimmittas. I think Visuddhimaga calls even the web nimitta.

However much I love science (PhD in physics), science is quite a bit behind when it comes to first person exploration of sleep: There are famous neurologists who define consciousness as "that which you lose when you fall asleep" (facepalm).

I am not sure what Ajahn Brahm would call the colour swirls.

Phosphene is from the Greek "appearance of light", compare the words photon and phenomenon. So it seems linguistically reasonable to me to call the swirls phosphenes emoticon

There are simple visions which I would not call hipnagoges, although they might have similar singular and "I'm just hanging out there in this mind chamber" quality to them like colorful 3d hipnagoges (if one gets such, for me only in high jhana). For me they can happen in the drifts or slides of consciousness (it's like a form of momentary diversion from jhana towards something else). It might be smoke or heated air for example, plus others... do you know what I mean?
I think I do, second and third screen both can definitely acquire a sense of depth and show images that are at least partly 3d, although not immersive, which is what we would call fourth screen. (Fun side note: During the last retreat we were discussing about the possibility of immersive non-photorealistic imagery I accused Daniel of having come up with a nomenclature for 2nd/3rd/4th screen that does not accomodate for that, and he told me that actually I am the one who has come up with the 2nd/3rd/4th screen nomenclature, which is something that I cannot recall to be honest, so not sure who should be blamed here...)

Whatever that is, whatever we call it, a 3d quality, even if relatively subtle tends to correlate strongly with the higher insight stages, so it is usually a good time to look pay attention to the things that can trigger fruitions, like the space between where "you" seem to be and the images, the distance, the separation, the relationship between the two. Does this make sense? Perhaps we could switch to PM if more tailored advice could be of use.




The very same friend I am writing about to Linda, the one which can project images into wakefulness ;-) and possibly have eidetic memory, clearly distinguishes between lucid dream appearences and astral. I've never had any OBE, but in my own experience sense the difference between hollow avatars from lucid dreams (they are only zombie-like projections of individual mind) and other types of presences.
So OOBE is its own beast with its own spectrum of things, and is quite complex to chart. You have very mild forms of OOBE (like seeing through closed eyelids) all the way up to "astral" stuff. There's all kinds of weird stuff. Once I managed to do something I would call "reverse OOBE": I tracked back my physical body from inside a lucid REM dream and re-entered the body, intentionally transitioning from REM to hypnopomp. Anyway most of the time, for me, OOBE correlates with hyponopomp phases of sleep.

For projection of images during wakefulness with eyes open, you'll want to ask Daniel, but even he can only pull it after powering up on retreat for one hundred hours or so, so your friend sounds definitely neuroatypical.



I am only asking here, why are these two types of experiences - lucid dream (which you can control), dream or immersive vision from FK and astral (which as I hear you cannot change)/sambogakaya both listed as fourth screen?
Why not? They are the same phenomenon attained through different practices, as far as I can tell.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 2:07 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Thank you neko for all these great details.

Whatever that is, whatever we call it, a 3d quality, even if relatively subtle tends to correlate strongly with the higher insight stages, so it is usually a good time to look pay attention to the things that can trigger fruitions, like the space between where "you" seem to be and the images, the distance, the separation, the relationship between the two.




Do you think Molten Gold and White and Gold, and in general fiery visuals also can be taken as triggers for fruitions, the same way you described above, to look for the space and relationship between the object and the observer?
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 2/18/20 4:05 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Every sensation can be taken as object for fruitions.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/19/20 12:22 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I wouldn't say that I projected the swirls, but something did. They are mainly faint and transparental, but sometimes - much more rarely - they partly block the view of things.

Just to clarify, that time I saw the swirls clearly among the audience at a dance show, swirling about as special effects, that would count as a hallucination. I also had seizures (non-epileptic). It would probably have been deemed pathological had I told any doctor (some kind of somatizing). At other times when swirls have blocked my vision they have been flat and it has been dark, so they only blocked my night vision, which is not very good anyway. The difference from having closed eyes is not very big then. One recent occasion was during a walk in the forest so my night vision should have kicked in, but still. It may be relevant to mention that I’m synesthetic. Apparently there are some synesthetic effects of color swirls that can happen from meditation even from people who are not synesthetic, or at least Bhante Gunaratana warns about it. I wouldn’t know. That was specifically about kasinas, though, and I hadn’t been doing it at that time period, so it’s probably more due to how my brain is wired than due to meditation. It is nothing that I can control. I’d guess that it’s some kind of trance state that I slip into occasionally. It should not be confused with projecting images. It's more like parts of my brain going into sleep. Nothing to brag about. I have seen the swirls in a bright room during meditation with eyes upen but in those instances they appeared as faint discolorings. I have seen a centered but faint and fluffy dot with my eyes open during yoga classes, which was also like a faint discoloring (when I close my eyes I can see that it really is a dot, still faint and fluffy). It's like those after images that you get if you stare at the same thing for a while. I get those very easily. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/19/20 2:41 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
neko:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I don't really believe that there are any clear boundaries between sleep and wakefulness anymore. 

Yup. Great insight. Read up on the illusory body practice in the six dharmas of Naropa and see if you can make that insight into a daytime practice.
Thanks! Will do. 

What an impeccable timing! https://youtu.be/G1ni9iPao_k 
A Guru Viking interview with Glenn Mullin on this very topic was just released. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/19/20 6:55 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Siavash Mahmoudpour:
Thank you neko for all these great details.

Whatever that is, whatever we call it, a 3d quality, even if relatively subtle tends to correlate strongly with the higher insight stages, so it is usually a good time to look pay attention to the things that can trigger fruitions, like the space between where "you" seem to be and the images, the distance, the separation, the relationship between the two.




Do you think Molten Gold and White and Gold, and in general fiery visuals also can be taken as triggers for fruitions, the same way you described above, to look for the space and relationship between the object and the observer?


I'm listening to this interview with Glenn Mullin right now https://youtu.be/G1ni9iPao_k and he happened to say something that reminded me of neko's reply to this question. He was talking specifically about tantra, but since neko replied the way he did, it seems to be relevant more broadly. I thought it was well put. He said:


The real nature of tantra is that everything that happens in the natural life has a significance in the enlightenment life. If you take it one way, it’s samsara. If you take it another way, it’s nirvana.


I have yet to develop that skill to take anything to a fruition (I prefer to think that I will some day but that may be overly optimistic). I’m quite envious.
It makes sense, though, because at the times when I manage to think of any difficulties in daily life as a great opportunity for vipassana, that really helps.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 2/19/20 7:41 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Yeah, I listened to the interview. It was interesting, thanks for sharing it.

About that question, when I wrote it, neko's point was not in my mind, but after I wrote it, it came to my mind that any sensation can lead to fruition. I didn't remove it because another point that I had in mind in that question, was about the nanas. Since neko said that when those visuals in previous comment arise, they correlates with higher nanas, and it's a good time to pay attention to the things that can trigger fruitions, with that assumption I wanted to know, can we say the same thing about Molten Gold and White and Gold, that they correlate with higher nanas, and it's a good time to go for fruitions. But neko's response was enough reminder for me to keep in mind when practicing, that was satisfying.
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/20/20 7:46 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I remember how confusing I found the talking about screens and Shinzen's talking about different spatial locations for thoughts. I love it that I have now found teachings that say that all those senses of having locations for them are just constructions. 
 
Hi Polly and Neko and Shiavash!

There's a lot I wanna say but since I'm on retreat in a phase of seeing the ending of phenomena ;-))), my intention is graspable for me only at the moment it dies, so... it's hard to write. Amazing though, how years of discipline thought me how to go against myself.
 
In our conversation here you, Polly wrote: "When I was using the sound as a concentration object, it seemed that the bodily piti and the sound were distilled into bright light, before that gradually dissolved into (and beyond) nothingness. So one might say that it can both coagulate and be distilled, if that makes any sense." I know exactly what you meant. And that's similar to what Neko says, right?
 
I want to write about layers/overlays/glossing/stratas/textures within the sensate field. I've been thinking recently that it might be related to working with samskaras/formations and this is not something easily done in wakefulness, but it's easier in what Neko calls hypnoagogic/hypnopompic lucid dreamless sleep and N2/3 (?) phase. I think this is all what I can pull off at this point.
 
This method used to be called freezing and coagulating layers and then making them flow/melt but after Polly's remark for the sake of clarity I am proud to rename it to: distilling layers, coagulating and flowing :-). It might be one of the options for working with relationship between the notions of separation, unity and subjectivity Neko is talking about.
 
One can do it within the sleep only if you started before going to sleep, so make sure you coagulate things well before they flow, so the impetus of your intention takes over when will and consciousness are almost non-existent in higher absorbtion (into jhana or sleep, nevermind).
 
Distilling. First you have to arrest one of the intangible processes like silence, space or awareness or subjectivity or agency or ownership (I have problems distinguishing between the last two - anyone any help?) or luminosity - so you have to distill them from the rest of the phenomena. Even when there are like only 6 massive objects in the jhana it might be hard before you reach enough concentration, but to some degree it can be practiced even "IRL" ;-). You have to grab whole massive (so big they aren't seen by mortals) phenomena all at once. They can be found "between" or "in the background" or "in many places at once" (In this case you first have to merge them). What you, Polly write about their different spacial location is super true and handy here - all these locations are artifacts and fake.
 
Coagulating. Although most of them have the nature of being processes or qualities, in this phase you can objectify and solidify them in a voluntary reification process. It makes them way more graspable and as they become solid, the time slows down and the clarity of perception increases big time. Here you can experiment with taking these layers on and off, i.e (for me):
 
  • Pure awareness with subjective agency overlay distilled, coagulated and removed, if agency layer was not taken off the subjectivity layer attached to emotional sense of self marker and body outline - changes into the presence of God
  • If agency is taken off the whole field of experience (both pure awareness and the small self), duality disappears and spontaneus divine quality is revealed everywhere
  • Here Dreamwalker is giving super fun examples on how to do these things with space, found it yesterday.
  • Regarding deconstructing the u-turn and the gello, I remembered also that I distilled the space out of the picture and when the whole thing became flat I saw that the whole 3d u-turn is in fact a combination of layers of: subjectivity sensations with arching, being round sensation and seeming source sensation plus maybe some others, can't remember now.
Had a lucid dream today, only in kinesthetic/feeling channel (no visuals) of all these textures fyling in space, coagulating in groups and melting. I remember distilling separately non-dual feeling of love and separately the texture of me loving him and the textures of our sense of self markers.

It changed into a visual dream, non-lucid - at the end I was sitting naked in the forrest asking some lady please not to stare at me. Frustration is often a dream sign for me, so when the lady refused, the 3d dream distilled into 2d flat cartoon and proved to be just a layer, one of the objects in my pure lucid awareness.
 
Flowing. Once you played with the coagulated layers taking them on and off various other aspects (I want to buy transparent colorful sheets to make a model of it for others) of experience, you can make them flow/melt/disappear. When it hapenns by itself I call it a drift or slide. It's like the whole field of experience is merging and loosing any internal structure, but I think that actually pure awareness remains. This is a very dull state for me (in the emptiness family of practices I would say, if we have luminous/awareness family too) related often to memory loss. I can't remember the earlier coagulating phasesfor some seconds but the sense of continuity and awareness are I think there. This is as close to fruition as I get, when things return online, it happens with a strong energy pulse and sudden clarity and then I can remember the whole sequence again.
 
In the end, it wasn't short but I'm glad I wrote it down :-). No point at the end. Going to melt now, see you!
 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/20/20 3:50 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I'm deeply grateful that you took the time to write although you are on retreat and in a phase of seeing the end of phenomena. Please don't let me distract you in your practice.

I found it very inspiring to read about your framework. I think it will make things a bit more tangible for me, using those metaphors as tools, when I do that kind of practice. The way I used the metaphor distilling it wasn’t the first step of the process, though. It was more something that happened later on. I have been working with the nada sound in different ways. Early in my practice it was simply more accessible than discursive thoughts. That was what would appear in my auditory channel. I noticed that it tended to sort of synchronize with flow sensations in the body and the statics in the visual field, so I often focused on all three at the same time. It felt like it was all the same thing, just manifesting differently. Later when I was doing shamatha I thought that if they really are different manifestations of the same thing, then I might as well use the nada sound as a nimitta instead of light, because it was easier for me to focus on the sound and condensate that (or coagulate it). For a while there I could separate tones and concentrate them until they were sharp (or I could go wider and more dynamically to make sort of a symphony out of it, which was less absorbed but fun; I’m sure it is possible to do that in a more absorbed way to get better sound quality and a more complex and well-composed melody, but I was just dabbling in it). So I decided to work with it as if it was a dot. When concentration was building up, it still spread to the bodily flow and sparks of light. I allowed that to be there but I saw it as part of the sound, if that makes any sense. As kinesthetic and visual manifestations of the nada sound. As I began to drop down in jhanas, I tried not to hold on to the kinesthetic sensations, as they are supposed to fall away. I’m mainly kinesthetic, so I think that often holds me back in shamatha practice. I’m definitely more auditory than visual, so I sort of allowed the bodily flow to transform into the sound and strengthen it. It’s all vibrations anyway, right? And it did. My plan was to strenghten and concentrate the sound and then spread it. And I did. But it turned out that at some point, the sound sort of vaporated and turned into light, all on its own. Same thing there - it’s all vibrations anyway. But now it was so strong that it didn't flicker, and I didn't need to do anything to spread it (there wasn't really any me there to do anything). It just filled everything. It was everything. So strong, so bright, so endless. And the silence was complete. Then absence of the silence. There was no hearing, no silence. It was beyond hearing, beyond silence, and beyond light or dark as well. And then awareness was slowly and gradually drawn into a singularity. And this just kept repeating with no rest inbetween. As soon as I happened to hear the nada sound, it triggered this trajectory. And as soon as I came back to existence, I could hear the nada sound. And so it went on and on. After I don't know how many times, it started to peter out a bit, but it still kept happening, and it was almost time to go to work and I needed to get some sleep, so I managed to distract myself with netflix enough to be able to sleep an hour or two. I wonder what would have happened if I didn't.

At the moment I'm not actually doing much of coagulation. I'm doing some newbie version of Dzogchen. Less frantic, subtler and more peaceful. I like the taste of it. Like a déjà vu but clear and unpersonal. So familiar and yet so substanceless. Ungraspable but always there when one falls and fails to hit the ground.

Hm, maybe the disentangling I often feel when I sleep-meditate is really lucid dreaming manifesting kinesthetically only. That’s possible.

I loved to read about your experiments with taking layers on and off. Very interesting observations! I think your method is in line with or compatible with how I have been working, although you are doing it in a much more advanced way. I’m just dabbling. I accidently took away layers of space one day when I was tuning into the space that silence comes from. I was standing next to a small river, and suddenly there were no distances. Everything was equally close. I couldn’t tell if something was near or close. It was all ”here”. I could repeat it a few times (it didn’t last very long), but I haven’t been able to do it since that one day.

Flowing for me is usually not a dull state, although periodically it is. That was how I gradually developed lucidity in sleep. When it was accompanied by dullness, I kept sensing the flow of the body with clarity even if everything else faded away, deeper and deeper down in the rest. Apart from that, the flow was an early landmark of clarity for me. I developed an attachment to it, and I had to learn to let go of it. There were periods when I was flowy nonstop, and when that finally ”stagnated”, as I thought of it back then, I would be in severe pain. I’m slowly learning that there’s a time for everything. Solidity can be good too. I worked with the earth element for a while (just dabbling) and that helped me to find a way to relate to being stable and steady.

Dreamwalker and I actually plan to talk. It’s just difficult to make it happen, as the time difference is nine hours.

I hope you are having a great retreat.
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/23/20 7:06 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 99 Join Date: 10/13/19 Recent Posts
neko:
There are simple visions which I would not call hipnagoges.
Whatever that is, whatever we call it, a 3d quality, even if relatively subtle tends to correlate strongly with the higher insight stages, so it is usually a good time to look pay attention to the things that can trigger fruitions, like the space between where "you" seem to be and the images, the distance, the separation, the relationship between the two. 

So I'vebeen experimenting with this and I guess I found new ways of working with luciddreams, which as it turns out I underestimated seduced by the historical valueof deep sleep I guess. Somehow I never thought of taking the lonely (simple andsingle figure on empty screen) hipnagoges as objects in meditation, was to muchentangled with more intangible processes (like separating emptiness, notingchanges in luminosity, counting passive and whole field-wide objects).

 

Current framework and goal: breaking through substrate consciousness (link to Wallace). Setting: very early morning wakeup and jhana 30-120 min. Next step: lucid dreamless (light N2/N3) sleep = formless jhanas (J5-8). This is where I can't figure out the sequence, maybe it depends on intention planted? What do you think? 

The "natural" sequence is: wake up, N1 (hipnagoges), N2 light dreamless sleep, N3-4 deep dreamless sleep, N2, N1 (REM dream)
The "jhana" sequence: wake up, jhana with possible bursts of hipnagoges when awareness drifts, N2 lucid dreamless sleep, N3-4, N2, N1 (REM possible lucid dream).

Is it possible to go straight from jhana to lucid light dreamless sleep without much hipnagoges? Think that was my sequence.
 
I considered the bursts of hipnagoges as slides, momentary lapses of attention (taking the finger off the closed door). As if personal psyche broke back "pulluting" substrate consciousness. I only valued the simple visions I spoke about (indra's net, smoke). They also happen in the drifts,  but dzogchen considers them beneficial signs of success happening when various elements dissolve in the central channel.
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hae1en, modified 4 Years ago at 2/23/20 7:13 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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So after your remarks to experiment with separation, whenever a 3d pattern or 3d single figure hipnagoge would manifest I would freeze and coagulate it better and grasp it for further discernment. And this brought some results and I'm wondering how to optimize the usage even better :-).

Case #1 Manifestation of 3d blue waves of water texture. Instead of noticing it, dissolving and returning to jhana my attention solidified it and merged with it to feel from within water. Fosforescent 3d blue seal appeared on the water and the whole field got sucked into the vortex, strange totally immersive blue in-between space with constalations of stars, all cartoonish, and it was possible to observe how the center point is reconstructed, as if an observer drunk from kinesthetic gravitational pulls was twisting in the air. Then the observer got back the body when spit out into totally immersive photorealistic ocean with hands floating between fishes and pearl-like corals. "What was the game plan?! Shape shifting into butterfly (no more dressed-up deities LOL)". The hands dissapear from the visual field, the center point disappears and instead of becoming a butterfly there is pure centerless lucid awareness again and 3d colorful cartoonish fish :-(. Short duration, all dissolves and wake up.
 
Case #2 Manifestation of 3d green and greyish geometric pattern texture. Coagulation and merging observer with the observed, sucked through one of the holes in the pattern into the immersive cartoonish kitchen with all the kitchen wealth possible (food), willfull application of photorealistic overlay, automatic reconstruction of the body, walking into the street, watching the zombie like-quality of all people, looking for "someone else", "wait, what was my game plan?!", can't remember, something with the body and concentrating on bodily feelings to gain duration, flying and single-note chanting (stimulates the body) - works great, long duration but hardly any more mental workspace to do anything else than chanting and screening avatars, for a brief moment looking "from within" one woman. With chanting strange cotton-like lumps of wool manifest in the dream air, lot's of it. When I remembered about the shapeshifting and tried it, again the whole field lost centerpoint and dissolved into pure awareness and waking up. In the hypnopomp phase, the cotton wool thingies were all over the visual field, but couldn't coagulate them enough to go back.
 
I'm not sure what fruitions are but am independently working on the notions of center and immediacy, subject-object complex, will and attention. It's interesting how in these two cases body automatically reconstructs with immersion and how the body and center disappear with the shape shifting of the seeming protagonist/subject. This is also a feedback device showing how my mind was working that time, right? I used to have more being the whole landscape and action and no body LDs, but not during this retreat. My working assumption is that it's due to reducing light/luminosity aspect.
 
So I realized that lucid dream would might be even a better place to to work with subject-object division than dreamless sleep. It's because everyting there is EVIDENTLY FABRICATED from the very start and it's easier to perecive it than "in real life". And objects are more graspable, like that woman on the street, if I took more time to take her as an object. Maybe instead of shape shifting I will try jumping to already existing "other" body first. If I used her same way I use space in jhana, it should be possible to recognize the whole dream as one awareness…

BTW, why tiny "blips" as fruitions should be more impontant than longer lasting insights about "the center" let's say? Because they show that the change of perspective "locked itself" for longer? Any other hints and ideas how to work with the above? I'm writing here, but you can respond in PM, if you prefer.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/23/20 7:41 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I just want to say that I certainly wouldn't mind for the conversation to continue here in this thread, if that is what you two would wish. Your decision, of course, and no pressure. Feel free to do as you wish. I find the conversation so far very inspiring. 

I'm not in the same league, but I did have some minimal lucidity in dreams this night, probably thanks to approaching the daytime as the dream it is and thereby gradually shredding the illusion that there is a difference. 

As for the blips, my current explanation model for them, which could be total bullshit, is that they are like when you have downloaded a major update on your computer and have to restart it for the changes in programming to have a chance to be integrated into the system.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/28/20 11:39 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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This night while sleeping, if one uses the rather arbitrary distinction between sleep and wakefulness, I found myself meditating. My entire reality was vibrational to the extent that distinctions could no longer be made between phenomena. When I "woke up" I gradually left that state and came back to being positioned in space and being able to distinguish between different sensory input. I was able te recognize fourth vipassana jhana on the way back. I haven't been able to access fourth vipassana jhana for a while now, but it seems to be more accessible while the default mode network (is that what it is called?) is asleep. As for the state before that, the totally vibrational one, I don't know what to call that. I think some would call it formless but I'm not sure if it qualifies. The only thing I experienced was vibrations, and I can't tell whether they were visual or kinesthetic or auditory or anything else, and I would have guessed that it was more on the verge of a "non-dual" state, but fourth vipassana jhana seemed to be on the way back from it. Shinzen would have called it flow. Michael Taft would have put it on stage four on his vipassana map for deconstruction. So maybe it's the kind of phenomenology that is more common in vipassana than in anything else. On the other hand, Michael did say that in non-dual traditions one can go from the opposite direction on his map, and so one would start inawareness and from there go to the vibrational level. I'm getting more and more fascinated by the intersection of different methods - how they map differently but somehow seem to met up at some points, but often with different connotations entangled with how people construct them. 
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 4 Years ago at 2/28/20 3:18 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 2/28/20 2:15 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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I don't think lucid dreaming or lucid deep sleep are that valuable. Every day is a new day, regardless.

Edit: I am on medication, which changes sleep patterns.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/28/20 3:43 PM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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Okay. Thanks for sharing.

I do think that if meditation takes place during sleep, it is an opportunity for insight to happen. 
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 4 Years ago at 2/29/20 9:00 AM
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RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

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There are a number of practices. Sometimes I have meditated, only to feel silly after I woke up.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 2/29/20 10:17 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 2/29/20 10:17 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Well, it's not like I have better things to do while sleeping anyway. emoticon
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 8:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 8:53 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Well, it's not like I have better things to do while sleeping anyway. emoticon

Sometimes I get fruitions.

Other times my practice consists of scanning my environment for a solution to world's problems. Then I dismiss everyrhing. I think everything kind of falls into the "murk" that Daniel talks about in 3rd jhana. Sometime the next day after stumbling through the beginning of my day the solution re-emerges. Often in new packaging.
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 10:08 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 10:08 AM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
Animals can really help ease us into lucidity. Just trying to apprehend what they are thinking or feeling can remove psychic contracts
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 12:06 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 12:05 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
"do I define jhana in such a way that I have attained it, or not?", 

From Neko


Here is my bit.
I got sloppy with how I noted jhana and would say to myself, 1 , 2, 3 etcetera


Therefore I hit the murk of mind going to sleep and something else comes up the next day that I didn't anticipate.
So I didn't have the problem of knowing which jhana I was in going to sleep until impermanence came by and stole the context away during, before, or sometimes but rarely after sleep.

Edit:
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 5:04 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/2/20 5:04 PM

RE: Lucid dreamless sleep

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Sleeping Buddha Syndrome:
Animals can really help ease us into lucidity. Just trying to apprehend what they are thinking or feeling can remove psychic contracts

I like that.

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