A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming Read Online Free PDF

Vishnu’s dream ends.
    “Dreaming gives us a glimpse of the god who creates us by dream-
    ing us into existence.” Hindus believed that dreaming is a higher
    state of consciousness than the waking state.
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    Tibetans
    The philosophical practice of dream yoga among the Tibetan
    Buddhists dates back at least a thousand years. While ancient
    Egyptians and Greeks knew the power of dreams, these yogis were
    the pioneers of lucid dreaming—we can’t thank them enough for
    laying the groundwork. They described specific techniques for
    achieving lucidity and training consciousness. The buck didn’t
    stop at lucid dreaming either. Once they became aware in the
    dream state, yogis had to complete a number of tasks, progressing
    to higher levels of their practice. These challenges included the
    exploration of various “worlds,” speaking with enlightened dream
    beings, and shape-shifting into other animals, to name just a few.
    The ultimate goal for a dream yogi was to become conscious of the
    fact that “all life is but a dream.” “Apprehending the dream” was a
    term that meant attaining complete conscious awareness. If a prac-
    titioner could become really, really aware in a dream, they thought,
    the dream would bleed together into a big mix of egoless bliss. Ah,
    pure nothingness. Once a yogi entered this nothingness, he would
    be able to observe the absolute purest form of conscious awareness.
    chinese
    Recorded evidence of dreaming in Chinese culture dates back to
    over four thousand years ago. Like other cultures from that era,
    the Chinese idea of dreams intertwined with other concepts: the
    realm of the dead and of the spirit. They divided the soul into two
    parts, the p’o (material soul) and the hun (spiritual soul). At night, when the physical body was at rest, the spiritual soul would depart
    from the body. The hun was free to visit the land of the dead or
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    commune with the souls of other dreamers. (Just don’t wake some-
    one up before their soul comes back to their body. The Chinese
    believed that their soul could be lost if they were awakened too
    abruptly, and no one wants that.)
    hebrews
    The deeper you go into the history of the Hebraic culture, the
    more you’ll find clues to a dreaming culture. In the Talmud, a
    book written between 200 and 500 CE, which instructs one on
    how to apply the Torah to everyday life, there are over two hun-
    dred references to dreams. It even has a dream dictionary of sorts
    that allows the reader to analyze dreams, nightmares, and visions.
    It states that “dreams which are not understood are like letters
    which are not opened.” Dreaming was considered to be a direct
    way to receive guidance from God.
    Indigenous Tribes
    To these “people of the earth,” everything around us contained
    spirit and we accessed this spirit realm when we dreamed. Dreaming
    was also a very social activity. These cultures thought that when we
    dream, we go to a shared space that is not limited by space or time.
    One could have dream visitors in addition to visiting other peo-
    ple’s dreams. Instead of gulping down a cup of joe, both Aboriginal
    Australians and the Iroquois would start their day by sharing their
    adventures of the previous night. Dreams were often a source of
    guidance not only for the individual, but also for an entire com-
    munity, and were used in hunting, healing, and war.
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    european Middle ages
    They aren’t called the Dark Ages for nothing. As the dogmatic
    practices of Christianity spread throughout Europe, dreams began
    taking a backseat. Despite this unfortunate approach to dreams
    during this time, it’s important to note that in the religious texts of
    Christianity there are plenty of nods to dreaming. Dig and you will
    find stories of divine dreams and the interpretations that followed.
    There are hundreds of dreams in the Bible alone. As Christianity
    continued to spread during this time, dreams were looked on as
    being evil and sinful.