Hi, dreamers!

OK, so I finally get around to reading Tolle's "The Power of Now", and there it is, right there in black and white. "Lucid dreams may be fascinating, but they are not liberating." When I first read that I didn't want to believe it, but then after a while I had to agree. You can have spiritual LD experiences, and I have, but can you achieve spiritual enlightenment, if that happens to be your goal, through lucid dreaming? I don't think so. I haven't had a lucid dream since, by the way. I guess I'm easily influenced.

Paul

Paul:

Couldn't a properly prepared mind achieve spiritual enlightenment during any act or circumstance? I hadn't realized that there were specific requirements for enlightenment... Didn't Siddhartha do it by rowing a boat, or something?

Seriously, though lucid dreaming can potentially be spiritually confining (due, for instance, to the trap one may set by failing to see past his dream character "I" to the dreaming "I"), it is an act by definition of expanding one's mind. Is there no way LD'ing could become a tool for enlightenment? If you're sure there isn't, then it would be great if you would share your reasoning. Who knows, a conversation might ensue that could help resume your LD's!

Peter

(Hermann Hesse's) Siddharta was listening to the voice of the river, when he got enlightened.

This rememberes me of a lucid dream I once had, when I was convinced of being able to dream lucid inside my lucid dream. This happended while I was floating through the water without breathing. Suddenly I was sure, that there must be severeral realities - and it's possible to enter them by trying to develop more lucidity. But I never succeeded (and I also never tried).

enlightening dreams,

Natalie

Paul,

I suspect that most or all of the highest spiritual experiences that have been described throughout time can be attributed to lucid dreams. Look at the similarity of meditation or prayer to WILD. These activities are probably incubating the lucid experiences that confirm or create the faith of those who practice them.

I have personally had an experience while lucid dreaming that was nothing short of liberating, bordering on enlightening.

HOWEVER, what Tolle said may have a grain of truth in that spiritual experiences separated from a lifestyle of devoted practice leading up to them may have short-lived effects. If that is what he meant, I'd have to agree. I can't help feeling that my experience was akin to having pearls thrown to swine.

No matter how impressed you may be with Tolle's knowledge of other topics, it does not mean that he has the experience to comment on the topic of lucid dreaming. (Realize that by making the statement that he did, he spoke for every person who has ever developed their lucid dreaming abilities. It's very unlikely that he is up to the task regardless of his spiritual development by other means. One person who could not have a liberating experience through this means, does not mean that others cannot.) He does actually have a stake in elevating his particular approach to spirituality in relation to others. Without having read his book, I'm suspicious that he may have spoken beyond the bounds of his knowledge. I also suspect that if confronted with it, he would agree.

Natalie:

Thanks for the clarification. It's been a few decades since I read that book, so it's become like a distant dream, but Paul's post reminded me of it.

Paul:

To extend Gordon's excellent point a bit further, couldn't that lifestyle of devoted practice be centered on lucid dreaming? The mental discipline and attitude are certainly present in most dedicated lucid dreamers!

Just a thought.

Peter

Let me begin by saying I have not read Tolle's book (but I did just read much of his Web site, including some excerpts from The Power of Now).

It is interesting to compare the meanings and etymologies of lucid and enlightened. I wonder, is enlightenment more like awakening within a dream, or awakening from a dream?

If, between knowledge and spiritual insight as definitions of enlightenment, we are arguing the latter--a sort of "eureka!" of the soul[1]--then I don't see why it should be particular to waking life. I admit I've never experienced satori during a dream, but dream experiences have certainly changed my view of the waking world, and not just intellectually.

[Middlenote 1: Without getting into a debate on the semantics of enlightenment, I assume for this discussion that one of the subject's properties is that it results in a significant change in the enlightened's worldview, often--if not always--having a corresponding change in behavior. Usually, such behavioral changes come from great stress, such as trauma, or constantly applied pressure, such as discipline.]

When it comes to Siddharthas, enlightenment takes on a particular meaning, is not so ubiquitous; it's enlightenment with a capital E. The enlightenment of Buddhism[2] is detachment from desire and suffering. Insofar as Buddhist practices are a means to this end, I wonder: is there an enlightenment-hindering or -helping difference between meditating beneath a tree in waking life and meditating beneath a tree in a lucid dream?

[Middlenote 2: Buddha is interchangeably translated as "Awakened One" and "Enlightened One", and derives from the Sanskrit bodhi, meaning "enlightenment." I'm sure this has been touched on in other areas of our forum; I'm just mentioning it here for the benefit of readers who have not encountered it elsewhere.]

Within Buddhism there is also the Zen school of thought, which emphasizes spontaneous enlightenment (as opposed to a lifetime of arduous seeking, which Zen recognizes as perpetuation of the desire and suffering the seeker seeks to escape). The Japanese word for this spontaneous enlightenment is satori. Perhaps Zen, which is rife with wonderful paradoxes (which are not paradoxes [smile]), would throw some cool, puzzling haiku at this thread, but I wonder again: is there a significant difference between waking-mind and lucid-dreaming-mind that hinders or helps satori?

One more note, this regarding Tolle's book: I don't know that I'm ever more now than when I'm dreaming.

Fiat lux.

Joshua

I really appreciate everyone's input here.

Tolle specifically is referring to certain "portals into the unmanifested" when he made his comments, and he was talking about the stage of deep, dreamless sleep as one such "involuntary portal", during which we are spiritually renewed, but without our conscious awareness. He states that if one could remain conscious in that stage, one would immediately become fully enlightened, that is have a total and permanent alteration of consciousness such that there would be an end to all negativity, and a permanent state of bliss. However, he goes on, it would be extremely unlikely that anyone could accomplish that task, that the best one could do was to achieve consciousness while dreaming, lucid dreaming,"which", he says, "is fascinating, but not liberating". He is trying to point out that it is up to us in our waking lives to do the necessary work to "open a portal" and to become enlightened.

I also thought that perhaps he had no personal knowledge of LD and no qualifications to make such a statement. I doubt if practitioners of Tibetan Dream Yoga would agree. As was stated above, if one is ready, then LD should be as good a practice as any to enable one to cross to the other shore. Still, I do think that for most of us LD doesn't accomplish it.

Thanks for your comments.

Paul

Paul:

You've sparked an interesting conversation, thank you!

I'm a little confused on three points:

a) How does Tolle know about this potential involuntary portal to enlightenment during deep sleep? If nobody has ever done it, and everyone is apparently perfectly and irretrievably unconscious during deep sleep, from where does he generate his thesis about an accidental portal? I'm sure he explains, if you could let us know in a line or two, it would be great.

b) If becoming conscious during dreamless deep sleep were possible (as Tolle must believe on some level, or he wouldn't have discussed it), wouldn't LD'ing be an excellent vehicle to bring the state about intentionally? Couldn't an extremely accomplished lucid dreamer expand her skills and bounds during the dream until she touches the deep dream state? Sort of prolong the LD into non-REM stages?

c) As has been discussed so many times in this forum, isn't about 90% of successful LD induction done during waking hours? Isn't rigorous preparation of mind and expectations while awake the key to success? I haven't heard of (or rather honestly believed) a dreamer professing that all of his success happened during sleep. (accidents happen, of course, but that's not LD induction; it's just a happy event of conscious presence in a dream).

And yes, I agree that for most of us, LD'ing won't bring about enlightenment. But isn't that true of any pursuit whose goal is something as grand? If everyone (or even a significant percentage of them) achieved something as incredible as enlightenment simply by mastering a discipline, that discipline would be very, very popular!

Best of Dreams,

Peter

Peter, Tolle claims to have knowledge of certain things regarding the spirit directly from internal experience which require no scientific validation, in his own words.

He asks us to accept that deep sleep is a time when our spirits enter the realm of the unmanifested without our volition, although not accidentally, but as a natural part of our nightly renewal. He does not say that entering that state consciously is possible, in fact, just the opposite. It's very unlikely one could accomplish it, therefore we must find and open a different portal, one that is within our reach. But LD, which is within our reach, is NOT such a portal, he says.

The question of whether non-dreaming sleep lucidity is possible I leave to Dr. Laberge, et. al. I tend to believe that it's not. But perhaps such a state can be achieved in deep meditation. I just don't know.

He also states more than once that achieving enlightenment is not "Grand" at all, but within the reach of all of us. It is, he says, our natural state, that becomes obscured by egoic delusion. Our egoic selves want us to believe that it is an impossible task for any but the spiritually advanced. This is off the subject, but would be Tolle's response to your last statement, I think. I think you would enjoy reading the book.

Paul

Just checking in to see what's accumulated in this thread since I left it. While I'm here...

There is a Zen saying that I read long ago, the gist of which was, we are enlightened when we're sleeping, and the goal of Zen is to be-do this while awake[1]. As Paul mentioned in his last post, this is our "natural state, that becomes obscured by egoic delusion." I agree, but I also concur with Peter's point about popularity. The journey to enlightenment may be available to all, and take us to what we really are, which is what we started out as[2], yet we--and not many of us, it seems--begin the journey with a choice, a decision, an effort, to get there, get somewhere, get enlightened, because, while we can know intellectually that the destination is the beginning or the journey itself (here we're at the heart of our "problem"), the journey is no less required to realize it, even if the journey is a flash, or stumbled upon unwittingly. And of the not-many who take up this journey, maybe most become better people along the way for having studied the Masters, but it seems, again, few of us become Masters ourselves.

I imagine the collective human condition would be quite different otherwise. Maybe that's where we're headed, or intended for, or perhaps it's just one more possibility in a really big universe. That I don't know may be precisely why it's a mystery, and that may be by design, as may be "egoic delusion."

But I digress; this is not an enlightenment forum, and I'm not certain how applicable anything I've written here is to lucid dreaming--I appear to be moving into a different section of the Venn diagram of the meaning of dream: a desire, a goal, a desired goal. I just wanted to pay my $0.02 to some notions that had been brought up. My usual apologies to the Powers That Be if I've gone astray.

Joshua

[Footnote 1: I'm paraphrasing big-time here, and the use of enlightened is entirely mine as far as I can recall.] [Footnote 2: Feel free to substitute any such cliché here--I went with the "true Self" because it jibes with the direction put forth earlier in the thread. As far as I know, the clichés are all true; they're just clichés until we experience them for ourselves; then, they're still clichés.]

Fascinating thread!

One general point I feel needs to be made is the difference between states and stages. An altered state is by definition a temporary experience, whereas stages of development are essentially permanent acquisitions. For example, there is a stage of spiritual development in which people feel a sense of oneness with all phenomena that arise (I believe this is sometimes referred to as "nature mysticism", and I've had that experience a few times.) Someone could have a temporary state in which they could perceive that way - not that uncommon actually - but to reach a stage of development where you have access to that perception all the time is another matter entirely.

Temporary states can help with spiritual growth by giving you a glimpse of a deeper/higher level of reality, and also by helping you disidentify with the stage in which you are currently embedded. However, in order for permanent stage development to occur, one would need to have an ongoing practice of some sort. I agree with Gordon's statement in his May 22, 2004 post, "spiritual experiences separated from a lifestyle of devoted practice leading up to them may have short-lived effects."

Lucid dreaming seems to me to be a valuable component of a spiritual practice, and it is certainly interesting to note that long-term meditators report an increase in spontaneous lucid dreams.

a.