Wake Down ~ Wake Up
Lucid Dreaming & Astral Projection
4 Modules Course
Manual & recordings available after Online Course
Have you ever pondered on the fact that you spend 1/3 of your life's time unconscious?
Some people sleep less because of this, while others sleep 'intelligent'.
I am delighted to announce the release of a new course in Lucid (Conscious) Dreaming and Astral Projection (Aka OBE or Outer Body Experience).
This course combines a mixture of the Toltec Shamanic approach along with that of the Tantrikas of India and the Tibetan Buddhist Yogins, all renowned for their insights in to the fabric of reality and our role within this great tapestry.
These 60-90 minute sessions will be informal, fun and hopefully very insightful, offering you a great chance to learn and deepen any practices you currently undertake, whether a newbie or experienced ‘surfer’.
The practices will be shared over a 4 week period, with one module per week. This will give time to enable you to explore your own self practice, established from the live workshops which will each last between an hour to 90 minutes. The sessions will be informal as always, there will be time for questions and sharing and recordings will be available should you need. The manual will be available to purchase at the end of the course or available free in exchange for your honest review at the end of your course.
Date
The course is scheduled for take off Thursday 7th November '24 until 28th from 7-8.30pm. This hopefully gives you plenty of time to free your calendar.
Booking
If you would like to attend the sessions please contact me [email protected] or 07974 340 685 to book your space. The course fee is £60. You can pay this in instalments starting from July up to Oct/Nov should this be of help.
A Little Background…
What Defines a Dream as Lucid?
A lucid dream (LD) is not the same as a vivid dream although an LD can be from mild to ultra vivid. A lucid dream is one in which you recognise while in the midst of the dream, that your physical body sleeps while your mind and (usually) dream body, roam the dreamscape.
What defines an Astral Projection (AP)?
For many years I read and wondered about the Cākras; how these wheels located within our subtle body vibrate at varying speeds. I saw my solar cākra in my twenties spinning while meditating as it flashed from my upper belly to my astonishment. However, this wasn’t enough. What about the vibrations? Are they for real and how did these ancient yogis really know this? Was it even true? As Shakyamuni said, don’t take his word as law, find out for yourself.
Each night our awareness withdraws away from the world which we perceive via our physical body and senses. While in the sleep cycle, our focus moves inward to our astral or spirit body which sometimes projects only ever so slightly away from the physical as we sleep. At other times, it projects further and travels to the stars, visits deceased loved ones, remains within the locality or explores further dimensions, past and future, beyond the 3rd dimensional space-time in which we live.
If Lucid Dreaming is the subjective experience of the inner dreamscape the astral projection and travel are the experience of a more objective reality where you enter the public domain. Both experiences can be hyper real although many report that the Astral planes or dimensions feel more like this reality than the dream scape.
Why would we want to Dream Lucidly or Project Astrally?
“My religion is not deceiving myself.” Milarepa
We spend 1/3 of our lives asleep in bed. For some this is an accepted norm. For others it is an opportunity to grasp this life’s brevity and seize opportunities to awaken within the dream.
I used to have Outer Body Experiences (OBE’s which are the same as Astral Projections) as a small child - my spirit used to project so that I would float outside our house above the lamppost, often alone and sometimes with some of my friends.
When I was in primary school I often felt I couldn’t see the faces of the teachers on the stage sufficiently well during assembly. After staring at one of them for long enough, without my attention wandering elsewhere, I used to find my self sitting right in front of them. These were mental projections where my mind was able to relocate close enough to see every skin pore, hair and wrinkle on their face, despite my being sat at times at the other end of the hall, at least 50 feet away 🙂
I have always been interested in dream life and now understand all these years later that many dreams are the direct download of the OBE/projection previously experienced while sleeping that night and at an even deeper and more unconscious level.
How many LD’s have I had?
I started in my twenties when I got heavily immersed in the work of Carlos Castaneda. It took me many years to put the pieces together to make sense of things. When a close friend passed in 2015 I restarted the practice and have now had (at the time of writing) 320 LD’s - within the last 9 years, all diarised.
Some are fleeting, some a minute or two and some five to 10 minutes long. I know there are others out there with many many more than this and of much greater length. All the same, I am ready to publish this work, first intended for our students of Pranasana Yoga.
How many OBE’s have I had?
Since 2016 I have recorded 39 in my diary. There are many others, often fleeting moments and some lasting a little longer, which have occurred especially during the practice of Khecarī Mudrā . During my youth I had many OBE’s from sleep or dream, some of which have been the most poignant moments in my life and which have helped to keep me in line with my spirit and the greater good. As stated, I have reached a stage where I am happy to share my experience thus far in order to help inspire those interested to start or continue their journey inwards. I do so in the hope that I offer something new to this area of the inner workings of our human spirit. At the very least I hope that my perspective and formatting of the information helps some to piece together the missing elements of their jigsaw. I have had many experiences of OBE from waking state or in meditation. One of the first occurred while meditating with my mother when I was a boy. I found that my awareness moved from my body up to a single point in the ceiling above my head for a few moments. I was beyond any doubt, back then and to this day, outside of my body.
When I had my first fully conscious separation from dream in 2016, I recognised the sensations of leaving the physical body while it slept were all too familiar. I vowed to pursue the process as it was only too clear how meaningful the experience was, especially with regards to absolute confirmation of our spirit body and life beyond the mortal coil.
Both LD and AP/OBE are a means to awaken from the dream delusion that we are just a physical body. To understand there is more to reality than meets the five senses and 6th, the mind. To see that we can use our mind, intention and to some extent will power to experience extra sensorially and know first hand that we are not limited to a body or brain.
With Astral Projection (AP), How do you know that you aren’t just hallucinating?
For someone who has never projected consciously it is wise to ask this question. I did so myself and am happy with the conclusion that the projection is as real or more real than this current one.
The physical body consists of vibrating matter with a specific resonance or frequency. The dream, energy, astral and other more subtle bodies vibrate at higher frequencies which one can feel when abiding in them consciously. Thus there is a theory that your soul resides on a higher plane for much of the time and the physical body is simply a projection of light known as a hologram.
How do these practices help?
Life in this body is short and time passes with accelerating speed. In my twenties I read the Tao De Jing, the Taoist ‘bible’ of the Taoist Canon.
One of my favourite verses, 47 -
"They know the world without even going out the door.
They see the sky and its pattern without even looking out the window.
The further out it goes, the less knowledge is;
Therefore sages know without going, name without seeing, complete without striving."
- Translated by Thomas Cleary, 1991, Chapter 47
Although initially understanding intuitively, it struck me years later that this implication to the deep insight gained through deep meditation and the ability to relocate one’s consciousness from the body to anywhere in space time, was a nice little cue to astral travel.
Knowing first hand there is more to life than work, holidays and all the usual stuff of achieving and obtaining and, that there is more to us when we wish to look a little deeper than we have before, has enabled myriads of yogis and sages to find an ease and joy independent of the body or worldly circumstances.
Thus the practices of Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projection have enabled me personally to relax into all which unfolds for me. Every day and every night. The challenges are of course still there but… when you are able to see that on some level, ‘It’s just a dream’ yet still function, in an evolving way, it makes a lot of sense to continue with this attitude which doesn’t imply one of cold detachment but actually one which is far more loving and honest.
Is it dangerous to want to dip in to the sub and unconscious?
I believe it is more dangerous to live a life in fear of questioning our inner recesses and being content to exist within the illusion just because it feels more familiar and comfortable. When we learn to slip inside the wave, surfing the infra-liminal waves of hypnogic or hypnopompic states (between wake and sleep or sleep and wakefulness) or deeper down in to the dark night of the deep sleep state, our understanding blossoms as to just how small and insignificant our ego is and how immense and immortal our soul.
Have You ever had an LD?
If you have ever had a lucid dream you will know how exciting it was and perhaps this is an area you would like to revisit and see how the practice can help expand to improve both your inner and outer life. One of my most delightful LD’s helped me to break free of some fear which then led to some work I had been hoping to access for many years 🙂
How conscious of our dreams are we?
Have you noticed how much junk mail stores up in your mail ever so quickly. Have you noticed on your computer there’s a lot of system data which builds up and you can’t access to sort or delete? How many dreams do we have a night and how long do they last? Do they usually seem a hash-mash of weird stuff and every once in a blue moon we have a dream that really feels significant?
What if every night we looked forward to going to sleep, not as an escape from the day and our troubles but as an extension of our life in which we not only rest deeply but also gain the opportunity to awaken to our full potential.
Isn’t it better to approach the end of our life having spent our years more relaxed in recognising it was all some form of dream than to fret constantly until we arrive at the crossroads and realise we could have enjoyed a more chilled path 🙂
Little by little these practices enable us to declutter the cellar and basement of our mind thereby enabling a great liberation of energy and inspiration.
As we know, there are cultures such as the Aborigines who have embraced such practices as ‘dream life’ and many stories in the bible of visions coming through dream and outer body travel. I intuit, accurately I hope, as do so many others and due to the increasing popularity of these practices in the last decade especially, that in the future this ancient technology will become a part of the mainstream, especially as AI and VR evolve.
We have spent our lives thus far convincing ourselves this reality is THE reality and that our dreams and projections are just that and no more. Imagine if we began to think opposite. Would I just walk out in the road in front of a car like Superman? Well no, not just yet 🙂
As AI and all things virtual are evolving rapidly and as research learns and grows, it is highly likely that we will be tapping in to the brain with devices in the future, should you so wish. The effect will be to trigger the various synapses, especially in the prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) which are both apparently involved in the playing out of these conscious spiritual experiences.
Dream Life
I think it important to point out before we begin to dive too deep down the rabbit hole, that speaking for myself, regardless of how many Lucid Dreams or Outer Body Experiences I have had, the fact that I have been involved in these practices throughout parts of my life and most intensively in the last 9 years, I am a changed person because of them. With regards to just dreaming; the nature, quality, enjoyment and recall that I enjoy in all my dreams continues to heighten, regardless of whether a dream or OBE is a conscious experience or not. Generally speaking my dream life is very vivid and at the end of the day there is always a deep joy in knowing that I am about to dive in to the mysterious ocean beneath the surf, whereby I always look forward to seeing what the night ahead holds in store!
Tips and Recommendations for Practice Sessions
Make sure you have a warm and quiet space in which to do the practices. You may wish to be slightly warmer than normal as your body temperature will reduce. The ideal temperature is what you perceive to be comfortable so as to allow your awareness to move inwards away from your sleeping body.
Do not eat a meal before practice. You will fall asleep.
If you must eat, try to eat lightly about 1 hour before and eat again sufficiently afterwards.
Have a pillow or small cushion to place beneath your head and any bolsters or blankets you wish to use beneath your body for extra comfort and support. You may wish to sit/lie in a recliner and/or create a semi supine support for your body. This makes it less difficult for most to fall asleep and at the same time comfortable enough for you to relax your body fully.
Make sure when ready to do the course meditations that the room lighting is sufficiently dim or even off. The best solution for many people is to place a soft eye cover like a silk scarf or soft cotton head band over the eyes.