Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

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Steve James, modified 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 11:41 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 11:41 AM

Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 104 Join Date: 2/15/19 Recent Posts
Hi everyone,

Here's a new interview with Glenn Mullin covering his own solo retreat history (with quite a bit of detail), his 6 Yogas of Naropa training in Dharamsala, a ton of info about Dream Yoga, and more.

Let me know what you think :-)

https://www.guruviking.com/ep28-glenn-mullin-dream-yoga-solo-retreat-guide-and-unlocking-the-human-potential/

Audio version of this podcast also available on iTunes and Stitcher – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

...

Show notes:

In this episode I talk with Tibetologist, translator, and Tantric Buddhist meditation teacher Glenn Mullin about the fascinating subject of dream yoga.

We begin by discussing Glenn’s own training in the 6 Yogas of Naropa, with specific detail about his own solo retreats -including a special dream yoga retreat in which Glenn remained upright for weeks - never lying down - to deeply penetrate the world of dreams.

We also talk about how to unlock the historically suppressed human inheritance of deep states of consciousnes and extra-ordinary abilities such as dream travel and ancestral communication.

Topics Include:

00:46 - Differences between Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelugpa training methods
04:00 - Glenn's training in the 6 Yogas of Naropa and solo retreat history
10:01- A typical retreat day schedule
11:45 - Individual variations on a daily schedule
15:10 - The best ages to do retreat practice
17:04 - Group retreat vs solo retreat
20:48 - Integration difficulties after extended retreat
24:00 - Choosing what to practice on retreat
25:04 - Why Glenn never became a hermit or monk
28:23 - Relating to a Lama
32:07 - The 4 practices of Chöd
34:00 - Yogic lucid dream practice
37:50 - Special dream yoga retreat format
41:19 - Attainment in dream yoga
42:20- First stage of dream yoga
46:50 - Illusory body yoga
49:00 - Further stages of dream yoga
51:27 - Stories of dream travel
56:58 - Dreaming of ancestors
58:56 - Unlocking the human inheritance of the deep mind
1:02:10 - Witch hunts and the plastic society
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 2:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 2:03 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I like it. I have taken an interest in dream yoga since the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness makes much less sense due to meditation and how it has started to dissolve those boundaries a bit.
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Steve James, modified 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 2:04 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 2:04 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 104 Join Date: 2/15/19 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I like it. I have taken an interest in dream yoga since the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness makes much less sense due to meditation and how it has started to dissolve those boundaries a bit.

I'm also fascinated by the subject.

What are the specifics of your dream yoga practice?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 4:11 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/13/20 4:09 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Oh, I'm just starting to learn about it as I have noticed that the boundaries have shifted. When I started my practice, watching the purple swirls would make me fall asleep. Now purple swirls are a regular feature of the meditation and even sometimes while I go about doing things. I assume that means that alfa waves have become more normal while I'm wakeful. Periodically during afternoon meditation (when in dissolution) I fall asleep but maintain lucidity during dreamless sleep for quite some time (probably mainly some lighter form of dreamless sleep). Instead of bashing myself for falling asleep, I decided to see how I can develop that into a practice. I have started to approach wakeful sensory input as a form of dream as well, albeit one that intersects with others' dreaming in a more consensual way (although I have had instances of such intersections happening while sleeping as well, at rare occasions). If one pays attention to it, it's really fascinating how true this seems to be. For instance, right now, my visual field is wider than what seems to be physically possible. I can recognize objects that are more than 180 degrees from where my gaze is directed. Not all the time, but in phases. It cycles. That's got to be dream vision, right? Just like lucid dream visions sometimes come up during formal meditation. I have started to learn about lucid dreaming and tried out some of it with varied success but I haven't yet made that into any systematic practice. I have also started to pay attention to the process of falling asleep at night, and to the process of waking up in the morning.

Do you practice dream yoga? If so, how?
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Steve James, modified 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 12:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 12:57 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 104 Join Date: 2/15/19 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, I'm just starting to learn about it as I have noticed that the boundaries have shifted. When I started my practice, watching the purple swirls would make me fall asleep. Now purple swirls are a regular feature of the meditation and even sometimes while I go about doing things. I assume that means that alfa waves have become more normal while I'm wakeful. Periodically during afternoon meditation (when in dissolution) I fall asleep but maintain lucidity during dreamless sleep for quite some time (probably mainly some lighter form of dreamless sleep). Instead of bashing myself for falling asleep, I decided to see how I can develop that into a practice. I have started to approach wakeful sensory input as a form of dream as well, albeit one that intersects with others' dreaming in a more consensual way (although I have had instances of such intersections happening while sleeping as well, at rare occasions). If one pays attention to it, it's really fascinating how true this seems to be. For instance, right now, my visual field is wider than what seems to be physically possible. I can recognize objects that are more than 180 degrees from where my gaze is directed. Not all the time, but in phases. It cycles. That's got to be dream vision, right? Just like lucid dream visions sometimes come up during formal meditation. I have started to learn about lucid dreaming and tried out some of it with varied success but I haven't yet made that into any systematic practice. I have also started to pay attention to the process of falling asleep at night, and to the process of waking up in the morning.

Do you practice dream yoga? If so, how?
Wow, that's sounds like a very interesting blending of the waking and dreaming states. Is this mainly appearing in the visual field?

Regarding my own practice, I just do the basics: I try to pay attention as I fall asleep and I try to recognise that I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 1:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 1:33 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I don't think there ever was a clearcut boundary, for anyone. I think that boundary is a fiction we tend to believe in. I think we are all projecting that hologram show that physicists are talking about, and that the weirdest thing of all is how solid we tend to believe it to be, and that we somehow have found a way to have such a large overlap in how we limit our perception. 

That said, yeah, this is mainly noticeable in the visual field, I guess. Maybe because I wasn't visual at all to begin with. I think it started with a shimmering in the periphery. But now it all looks completely normal. It's just sometimes much wider. What I can't figure out is how I can dream up things that then come into my regular visual field looking the same. I mean, even when I'm wearing headphones, I can probably hear a biker coming up from behind and make a mental picture of it, but how do I know the color of their clothes?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 1:56 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 1:56 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
And I know how this sounds. Let's just say that this isn't a practice for anyone who needs to maintain a belief in consensual reality as something solid and real in order to treat it as normal - which it is. Normal, I mean. It is still as normal as it ever was.
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Steve James, modified 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 5:29 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 5:29 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 104 Join Date: 2/15/19 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I don't think there ever was a clearcut boundary, for anyone. I think that boundary is a fiction we tend to believe in. I think we are all projecting that hologram show that physicists are talking about, and that the weirdest thing of all is how solid we tend to believe it to be, and that we somehow have found a way to have such a large overlap in how we limit our perception. 

That said, yeah, this is mainly noticeable in the visual field, I guess. Maybe because I wasn't visual at all to begin with. I think it started with a shimmering in the periphery. But now it all looks completely normal. It's just sometimes much wider. What I can't figure out is how I can dream up things that then come into my regular visual field looking the same. I mean, even when I'm wearing headphones, I can probably hear a biker coming up from behind and make a mental picture of it, but how do I know the color of their clothes?

Was this associated with a path attainment or other noticeable event/stage, or did it phase in gradually?
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Noah D, modified 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 10:21 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/14/20 10:21 PM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 1211 Join Date: 9/1/16 Recent Posts
That description of the dream yoga retreat was super cool.  Never heard of strong determination sitting & sleep deprivation as techniques for that before.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/15/20 6:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/15/20 6:15 AM

RE: Interview with Glenn Mullin! (Solo retreat guide, Dream Yoga, 6 Yogas)

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Steve James:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I don't think there ever was a clearcut boundary, for anyone. I think that boundary is a fiction we tend to believe in. I think we are all projecting that hologram show that physicists are talking about, and that the weirdest thing of all is how solid we tend to believe it to be, and that we somehow have found a way to have such a large overlap in how we limit our perception. 

That said, yeah, this is mainly noticeable in the visual field, I guess. Maybe because I wasn't visual at all to begin with. I think it started with a shimmering in the periphery. But now it all looks completely normal. It's just sometimes much wider. What I can't figure out is how I can dream up things that then come into my regular visual field looking the same. I mean, even when I'm wearing headphones, I can probably hear a biker coming up from behind and make a mental picture of it, but how do I know the color of their clothes?

Was this associated with a path attainment or other noticeable event/stage, or did it phase in gradually?

It's a gradual development, and it still isn't very much developed. It's just occasional sneak peaks. And I think most people have such sneak peaks without noticing it. 

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